Ethiopia will withdraw its troops from Somalia by the end of this year, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Friday.
Addis Ababa has sent thousands of soldiers to support the country’s Western-backed interim administration, which has been fighting Islamist-led insurgents for nearly two years.
The Somali government wants a fully-fledged United Nations peacekeeping force to replace a small African Union force that has been unable to stem the violence.
Wahade Belay, spokesperson for Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry, told Reuters his government had informed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Jean Ping, chairperson of the AU Commission, of its decision by letter on Tuesday.
Ethiopian troops have frequently clashed with the rebels, who control most of the south and launch near-daily attacks on government forces and AU peacekeepers in the capital, Mogadishu.
Nearly two decades of chaos in the poor Horn of Africa country has created a breeding ground for kidnappings, banditry and rampant piracy in the busy shipping lanes offshore.
The fighting has killed 10 000 civilians since early 2007, driven more than a million more from their homes and left more than three million Somalis in need of emergency food aid.
In the latest violence, five people were killed on Thursday when assailants tossed grenades into a busy market in Baidoa, the central town where Somalia’s parliament sits. — Reuters