Burundi’s Defence minister confirms withdrawal of 1,000 troops from AMISOM
Bujumbura, Burundi (PANA) – The Burundian minister of Defence and Former combatants, Emmanuel Ntahomvukiye, on Thursday confirmed the ‘’unilateral’’ and ‘’regrettable’’ decision of the African Union to have 1,000 troops of the 5,000 Burundian contingent withdrawn from the African peacekeeping Mission in Somalia, before the end of February.
A note to that effect was sent by the AU commission chairwoman to the Burundian embassy in Addis Ababa on 24 December.
She did not give further details or reasons for the withdrawal.
Burundi contributed 4,922 troops to have been deployed in Somalia.
The other countries that contribute to the AMISOM troops are Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti.
A progressive withdrawal programme of some 22,000 AMISOM troops is expected from this year to leave the place to a new Somali army still being established.
Burundi is the second biggest contributor of troops to AMISOM which was established to help the central power in Mogadishu to face the young Islamist El Shebaab insurgents.
The civil war of nearly three decades in that country of the Horn of Africa does not seem to be nearing its end despite the announced withdrawal of African peacekeeping troops in Somalia, according to observers.
The Somali president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, early this week made a two-day visit to Burundi, to discuss the withdrawal of its troops from AMISOM.
Against that concern, the joint statement issued at the end of his visit called for the convening of an ‘’urgent’’ summit of heads of State of AMISOM troop contributing countries.
The Burundian Parliament backed the request for such a summit ‘’seeing that AMISOM is far from achieving the mission for which it was established.
The deployment of Burundian troops within AMISOM had not been discussed and authorized by Parliament.
The withdrawal is synonymous with the loss of advantages for both the Burundian government who is remunerated, proportionally to the staff and war equipment it provides and for the Burundian soldiers themselves whose payment on commanded missions are high.
-0- PANA FB/BEH/MSA/VAO 21Feb2019
