The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday condemned the latest violence in Somalia, including a weekend suicide attack that killed 11 African peacekeepers, Japan’s UN envoy said.
”The members of the Security Council condemn in the strongest terms” the attacks and ”reiterate their condemnation of all acts of violence and incitement to violence against Amisom,” the African Union Mission in Somalia, said Ambassador Yukio Takasu of Japan, which holds the council’s rotating presidency.
Eleven Burundian soldiers were killed and 15 wounded in the attack on their camp in Mogadishu, according to a statement on Monday by the Burundian army in Bujumbura.
The attack was the deadliest so far against Amisom, and raised to 20 the number of African Union soldiers killed since the force’s deployment in March 2007, according to a count by Agence France-Presse.
The 15 members ”reiterate their commitment to support a strengthened Amisom, which has a vital role to play in helping to bring peace and security to Somalia”, he said.
They ”welcome the ongoing political process in Somalia that led to the expansion of Parliament and the election of a new president”, the moderate Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, said Takasu.
The members ”call on all Somalis to reject violence and extremism, to embrace peaceful means of resolving conflicts, and to support the government towards this goal”.
Amisom, which consists of 3Â 400 troops from Uganda and Burundi, is underfunded, poorly equipped and less than half the size of the 8Â 000-member force initially contemplated for the mission.
Since the departure of Ethiopian troops from Somalia last month, it is the only foreign force in Mogadishu, a city ravaged by warfare and violence.
Islamist forces opposed to UN-sponsored reconciliation bids in Somalia have launched several deadly attacks against the government and African Union forces in recent days. — AFP
