Thursday, January 29, 2009
The announcement of this new pledge by Algeria was made by African Union Commission chairperson, Jean Ping who addressed the opening of the AU executive council meeting on Thursday here in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Ping did not however indicate when the Algerian troops’ deployment in Somalia will be effected.
The Algerian troops will join the 3, 600 troops from Burundi and Uganda, deployed there since 2007 to support the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia in stabilizing the country, which remains without a central government for the past 18 years.
Ping said that such kind of new pledges will help the commission to fulfil its mission in Somalia.
Algeria also pledged to give technical support to AMISOM.
Earlier, Burundi and Uganda who already have troops in Somalia also pledged to send additional one battalion (850 troops) each.
Ghana, Malawi and Nigeria also pledged since 2007 to send troops to Somalia.
However, they are still unable to send their troops due to financial and other constraints.
Therefore, AMISOM still faces a shortage of some 5,000 troops to complete the mission’s proposed strength.
A number of African countries are expected to pledge more troops during the summit in Addis Ababa.
Source: APA, Jan 29, 2009