Some 3,200 Ugandan troops to be deployed in Somalia

Addis Ababa, July 30 (WIC) - Uganda announced on Friday (July 27th) that it will be deploying a new specially trained battalion of some 3,237 Ugandan People Defence force troops to AMISOM.

The troops who have undergone a four months special training at the Singo military centre will be deployed in the coming months.

The troops are Uganda’s 10th battle group to be deployed in Somalia since the launch of the African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) in 2007. They will be replacing battle group eight. 

The deployment will raise the number of Ugandan troops in AMISOM from 5,160 to 6,860.  Speaking at the graduation of the troops, Major-General Levy Karuhanga, Commander of Reserve Forces, urged the troops to keep the AU, UN and Uganda’s flags high in Somalia.

Assisting and cooperating with other states was part of the Uganda Government’s commitment to pan-Africanism, he noted. He cited discipline, training, combat readiness and pan-Africanism as factors in the successes achieved by the Ugandan forces in Somalia.

The Commandant of the Singo training school, Colonel Stephen Kashure told the troops to be steadfast in their pursuit of terrorists, saying that “the performance of the first battle groups has shown that what seemed ‘mission impossible’ has become ‘mission manageable’.”