AU wants 600 Ugandan soldiers to leave Somalia

Ugandan troops in Somalia

By New Vision of Uganda and PFJ Reporter in Mogadishu.

Uganda has over deployed in Somalia and as a result, the African Union (AU) has directed that 600 of its men return home. UPDF chief of land forces Lt. Gen. Katumba Wamala told MPs on the defence committee Thursday that the directive came after AU noted that Uganda had exceeded its quota by 600 officers.

“The AU notified us in July that we had over-deployed our soldiers and needed to scale down by 600. These will soon come back home. Some of these will be the most recently deployed Police officers,” he said, adding, “if you see us not deploying anymore yet we have carried out training, please know the reason.” According to Katumba, Uganda has so far deployed 6,332 officers in Somalia. He explained that AU only endorsed 17,730 officers from all the contributing countries. “The scaling down is also partly due to deployment by Kenya and we are also expecting another from Sierra Leone,” he said.

Katumba and other defence officials led by state minister of defence Maj.Gen. Jeje Odong were appearing before the committee to defend the ministry’s budget estimates. During the discussion, committee chairman Milton Muwuma asked the officials to brief the committee on the current situation in Somalia. “We are getting lots of complaints from the Ugandan soldiers in Somalia that part of their money is being deducted yet the work they do is just too much. What does defence do with this money?” Muwuma asked.

Meanwhile two Somali nationals were on Thursday killed on the outskirt of Western Cape South African city of Cape Town, reports say. The duo, Bashir Sheikh Sufi and Abdi Tifow were reportedly attacked by two armed South African gangs while offloading stock for their shop in Valhalaburg.

Police conducted search operation in order to arrest the assailants who fled the scene of the crime.
Saeed Ali Madow, who works at the shop where the two were killed, said the gangs escaped without taking away anything from the shop.

Area Somali community chairman Abdi Jidow said they have already discussed with local police over the killing and promise to push for the arrest of the gangs. The latest incident is part of increasing violence against ethnic Somalis who run Spaza shops- makeshift kiosks usually run from private houses or a shack of corrugated iron in black South African townships across the country