DAR ES SALAAM (AFP) – A summit of the East African Community on Tuesday urged the United States and the European Union to step up their support for AMISOM, the African Union’s peacekeeping force in Somalia.

“The summit called upon the international community, in particular the US and the European Union, to enhance their support to AMISON including addressing the piracy menace,” a final communique said.

The EAC, which groups Tanzania with Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, also “commended Burundi and Uganda for the sacrifices borne out of their efforts to restore stability” in Somalia.

The 9,000-strong force of Ugandan and Burundian troops deployed to protect the ailing Somali transitional federal government (TFG) has over the past five months regained significant ground in central Mogadishu.

The TFG and AMISOM had long been confined to a few blocks, unable to take the battle to the Shebab, an Islamist insurgent movement that has controlled most of the Horn of Africa country for two years.

AMISOM now controls around half of Mogadishu and is gradually tightening its grip around Bakara market, the heart of the capital’s economic activity and a crucial source of funds for the Shebab.

AMISOM top commander General Nathan Mugisha earlier this month said this was a turning point in the conflict and urged the world to help AMISOM break the back of the Islamist insurgency.

Despite an increased international military presence off Somalia’s coastline pirate attacks have surged and they have raked in huge ransoms.

A total of 97 attacks were recorded off Somalia in the first quarter of this year, up from 35 in the same period last year, the International Maritime Bureau said in a report last week.

Participants in Tuesday’s summit in Tanzania’s economic capital Dar es Salaam also backed the AU position in favour of extending the TFG’s mandate for a year.

The Kenyan, Burundian, Ugandan and Tanzanian presidents Mwai Kibaki, Pierre Nkurunziza, Yoweri Museveni and Jakaya Kikwete attended the summit, while Rwanda was represented by Prime Minister Bernard Makuza.

The heads of state and government approved the nomination of Rwandan Health Minister Richard Sezibera as the next EAC secretary general.

Source: AFP

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