Uganda now is threatening that it will withdraw all of its troops from Somalia if the United Nations insists on reducing the number of troops on the mission.
Due to declining and irregular funding, the UN Security Council, in Resolution 2372 of 2017, proposed a phased drawdown of troops in Somalia with a full pullout by 2020.
The Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni has recently become critical of the UN, has threatened to pull Ugandan troops serving under AMSIOM if it is forces to scale down.
Uganda is the largest troop-contributing country to AMISOM, with more than 6,400, of the total 21,626 soldiers.
This comes after Burundi’s Pierre Nkurunziza threatened to pull out of AMISOM if the funders of the mission insist that Bujumbura recall its 1,000 soldiers.
President Museveni, while addressing a high-level meeting of ministers in charge of refugees in the Great Lakes Region in Kampala on Thursday, noted that UN Security Council’s move lacks seriousness to the task of flushing and eliminating Al-Shabaab. Museveni further stated that troop-contributing countries have said that this number is smaller than what is required to fully pacify Somalia and have been advocating a troop surge instead.
“They recommended I should reduce the number of soldiers but I will not reduce even a single one, unless I take all of them out of Somalia,” Museveni said.
