At least 3000 Somalis have taken to the streets of Mogadishu to protest against the planned deployment of troops from other African nations to help Somalia regain a government. | Regain? |
The pan-continental African Union (AU) in February asked the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, which brings together Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti, to deploy an interim peace mission in Somalia ahead of a proper AU force. The interim mission is intended to allow a Somali government, which has been formed in exile in neighbouring Kenya with Abd Allah Yusuf Ahmad as its president, to move to the capital Mogadishu. Some influential militia leaders have also refused the inclusion of forces from Ethiopia, which they accuse of backing various factions, or Djibouti, on the grounds that it supported the predecessor to Yusuf's government. "No foreign troops are required in Somalia. We can resolve our problems without a single peacekeeper from Africa or Asia," said Bashir Raghe, a commander who controls parts of northern Mogadishu, where anti-foreign-troops demonstrators took to the streets.