The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has used its twitter account to dismiss as “simply untrue” media reports quoting figures suggesting that the mission had lost up to 3000 troops since 2007.
The media had quoted United Nations Deputy Secretary-General
Jan Eliasson as saying on Thursday “You would be shocked to learn that maybe it
is up to 3,000 AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia) soldiers that have
been killed during these years that AMISOM has been there.”
In an attempt to debunk the claims, AMISOM said although it
“has learnt that media reports indicate that it lost up to 3000 peacekeepers
since 2007…that figure is simply untrue”.
In successive tweets at around 16:44 GMT on Friday, it
stopped short of naming the UN official involved, adding: “In Africa every
individual death is sacred and we are not in the habit of counting the number
of dead. That’s why we call them martyrs.
“For us even one African death is a huge loss but they died
for a noble cause. We simply honour their ultimate sacrifice for their brothers
and sister”.
The force, which began deploying in 2007, has 17,700 troops
from Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Djibouti.
Eliasson on Thursday spoke about the tremendous price Burundi
and Ugandan troops, and to some extent Kenyans have had to pay.
“I want to pay tribute to the countries and to their soldiers
who paid such an enormously heavy price” he said.
According to the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations,
3,096 U.N. peacekeepers have died since 1948.
AMISOM has been involved in a military campaign in Somalia to
end Islamist insurgency and bring stability in the war-ravaged country.
The multinational force has scored spectacular
successes against the Islamist group al Shabaab, driving its militias out of
the capital Mogadishu and other urban centres although insurgents still hold
sway in some villages and towns in the south of the country.
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AMISOM denies 3,000 deaths in Somalia since 2007
The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has used its twitter account to dismiss as “simply untrue” media reports quoting figures suggesting that the mission had lost up to 3000 troops since 2007.