KAMPALA (Halbeeg News)-The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni has threatened to pull all his troops from Somalia if the UN insists on AU troop drawdown.
The East African landlock nation is a significant troops contributor to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) since 2007.
Addressing a high-level meeting of ministers in charge of refugees in the Great Lakes Region, Museveni said he warned the UN security council against the consequence of the decision to reduce the number of troops on the mission.
He stated that he had personally informed the Security Council that Uganda would withdraw its 6,400 contingent from Somalia if it is forced to scale down.
The president said the Security Council’s move was a “total lack of seriousness” to the task of flushing al- Shabaab out.
“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,” Mr Museveni said.
Mr Museveni told that his efforts to convince UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon and his successor António Guterres were rebuffed.
“Because the numbers are small, we are only in urban centres and streets while al-Shabaab is taking over the countryside,” he said.
Due to declining and irregular funding, the UN Security Council, in Resolution 2372 of 2017, proposed a phased drawdown of peacekeepers in Somalia with a full pullout by 2020.
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