Uganda says troops will remain in Somalia

Uganda's defence minister Kiryowa Kiwanuka said Friday that Ugandan troops will remain in Somalia under a bilateral arrangement, even as uncertainty grows over the future of the African Union mission there.

“Uganda is going to remain in Somalia,” Kiwanuka told AFP, while declining to give further details. He indicated the future presence would be outside the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia, known as AUSSOM.

Uganda has about 4,500 troops in Somalia under AUSSOM and a further 2,000 under a bilateral agreement, a military source told AFP.

AUSSOM is the leading force supporting the Somali army as Somalia fights Al-Shabaab. The Islamist group launched an offensive last year that took back much of the territory seized by federal forces in 2022 and 2023.

The mission's future has been thrown into doubt after Washington announced it would end payments to the UN Support Office in Somalia, which provides logistics to the mission, by the end of the year.

Mogadishu and Kampala signed a bilateral agreement at the end of 2024 on the deployment of an unspecified number of Ugandan troops from 2025.

Kiwanuka spoke after a meeting of the Eastern Africa Standby Force in Kampala that discussed funding shortfalls. Defence ministers from AUSSOM countries and Somalia have called for an “orderly, coordinated” exit of the AU mission to hand over to Somali forces.