Burundi has accused Somalia of betrayal and lack of reward, after it was not included in the list of countries that were allowed to send troops to the new African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia in the Horn of Africa.
This new mission, known as AUSSOM, will begin in January 2025, replacing the previous ATMIS mission in Somalia, which is scheduled to end on the 31st of this month.
Burundi was one of the countries that had many troops in ATMIS, but its troops will not participate in the new operation due to a dispute between them and Somalia based on the number of troops that Burundi wanted to send.
Burundi requested to send 2,000 additional troops to Somalia, but Somalia agreed to only 1,041, resulting in Burundi’s withdrawal from AUSSOM.
A senior official in Burundi told ChimpReports in Uganda that Somalia was cheating.
He said: “We have seen betrayal and lack of reward from the Somali side, without considering the great sacrifice we have made in the fight against Al-Shabaab.”
He added that Somalia’s decision to request a small number of troops was seen as a threat to the effective operations of the Burundian army.
Burundi has been the country with the second largest number of peacekeeping forces in Somalia since 2007. Its forces played a role in liberating many parts of Mogadishu that Al-Shabaab had captured, such as the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense of Somalia.
