MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – The five African nations contributing troops to the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) on Friday called for the urgent deployment of an additional 8,000 peacekeepers, warning that recent military setbacks threaten to unravel years of hard-won gains against Al-Shabaab militants.
Meeting in Kampala, senior officials from Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Burundi — along with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud — urged the international community to step up funding and support for AUSSOM, whose planned deployment of 11,900 troops remains in limbo due to a critical financing gap.
The troop-contributing countries (TCCs) stressed that bolstering force numbers was imperative to reverse the momentum seized by Al-Shabaab following recent withdrawals by AU forces. They cited insurgent advances in central and southern Somalia, where militant fighters have rapidly retaken towns vacated by peacekeepers, exploiting a security vacuum created after the AU began drawing down its contingent from a peak of 22,000.
The reduction of forces was premature and ill-timed, the TCCs said, indirectly criticizing the Somali government’s 2023 assertion that its forces were ready to assume full security responsibilities.
The AU began scaling back its mission under international pressure and amid donor fatigue, particularly from the United States, which has declined to finance the originally proposed deployment. The European Union — the other principal funder of AU peacekeeping operations — remains heavily invested in the war in Ukraine, raising questions about its capacity to underwrite operations in Somalia.
The challenge now is not only securing funding for the newly requested deployment of 8,000 additional troops, but also for the initially approved 11,900 AUSSOM forces sanctioned by the UN Security Council, analysts say.
In addition to troop reinforcements, the TCCs called for increased aerial surveillance and combat air support to shift the balance in favor of Somali and AU forces, who have struggled to contain the insurgency in recent weeks.
AUSSOM, established to replace the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), was envisioned as a leaner yet more agile force to support Somalia’s transition to full security autonomy. However, without urgent funding commitments and strategic reinforcements, diplomats and analysts warn the mission risks faltering before reaching operational capacity.
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