ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Ethiopia on Tuesday called for a quick deployment of peacekeepers in war-ravaged Somalia, an African nation increasingly running adrift in the face on an escalating insurgency.
Of the 8,000 peacekeepers the African Union pledged to send to bolster President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed’s weak government, only 1,500 Ugandan troops are actually on the round.
“The plan designed to deploy peacekeeping forces to Somalia should be materialised as soon as possible,” the Ethiopian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Ethiopian troops helped sweep aside Islamist militants from much of the country they had briefly governed in January, but have been embroiled in a deadly insurgency mainly in Mogadishu.
Rebels recently dragged through the streets, stumped and spat on the bodies of Ethiopian troops, a grisly reminder of a similar treatment of US special forces in 1993.
Burundi and Nigeria had given firm pledges to contribute soldiers, but are yet to make good their word.
The Ethiopian foreign ministry called on the international community to facilitate efforts to restore durable peace in Somalia, where the last functional government collapsed in 1991 after the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
The escalating insurgency has seen UN chief Ban Ki-moon rule out sending any peacekeepers to the Horn of African nation, except for a “coalition of the willing.”
But on Monday, the UN Security Council said there was need to pursue contingency planning for the possible deployment of UN troops, side-stepping Ban, but giving no promises.
Previous peacekeeping forays by the United Nations and the United States ended disastrously in the mid-1990s and the world turned its back, abandoning the country at the mercy of armed gangs.