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Nigerian officers assess Somalia
20/03/2008 12:08 - (SA)
Mogadishu - Ten Nigerian army officers arrived here on Thursday to assess conditions ahead of a troop deployment to bolster an undermanned African Union peacekeeping force, said an official.
The officers held talks with officials from the embattled Somali government and AU Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) in the capital Mogadishu, where security forces were battling Islamist rebels.
"This is an advance team of Nigerian peacekeepers. They are assessing the situation and deployment of their troops will follow later," said an AMISOM official. He did not give a timeline.
The AU had raised less than half the 8 000 peacekeepers it needed to deploy in Somalia to help restore stability in the country torn apart by internecine war for the past 17 years.
Burundi - which had 850 troops in Mogadishu - was expected to deploy a total of 1 700 soldiers in Somalia, alongside about 1 600 troops from Uganda who had been in the capital since March last year.
In early 2007, the Nigerian army announced plans to send troops to Somalia, but the deployment was delayed by worsening security in the country.
For the past year, Mogadishu had been rocked by almost daily violence pitting Ethiopian-backed Somali forces against Islamist insurgents.
The guerrilla fighting had killed hundreds of civilians and forced tens of thousands to flee.
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