Leaders call for 20,000 troops for Somalia

  1. Posted on Tuesday 6 July 2010 - 09:29
    Abdilatif
    Image of Abdilatif
    Abdilatif Maalim, AfricaNews reporter in Nairobi, Kenya
    An emergency meeting of leaders from the Inter-Government Authority on Regional Development (IGAD) bringing together six East African countries has recommended that an additional 20,000 peacekeeping force should be sent to Somalia. The regional bloc recommended that the UN and the AU should send extra troops to Somalia to salvage the chance of peace.
    SOMALIA-Fresh fighting forces thousands to flee
    The regional leaders also agreed to send 2000 troops to complete the 8000 troops the African Union promised to send to Somalia in 2008.

    Leaders from Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibuti and Somalia said the situation in that country is very dangerous and delicate and that could see the weak western backed transitional federal government eventually being overwhelmed by radical Islamist militia groups that control large portions of the capital.

    Somali President Sheikh Shariff whose pictures were flashed in the state broadcaster website in military uniform leading a group of soldiers in the front lines against the Islamist militia is said to have pleaded with his counterparts to save his government which is at imminent risk of being toppled by the radicals.

    The leaders have also discussed the infighting in the transitional federal government that has seen the resignation of four cabinet ministers last month, Shariff’s counterpart are said to have called on the TFG to end the internal feuds.

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