Kenya has obtained Ksh2.5 billion ($17 million) prior to now 5 years for its contribution to the Somalia peacekeeping mission (now often known as the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia) whose mandate is ready to finish in December subsequent yr.
Defence Cupboard Secretary Aden Duale advised parliament this week that the cash was despatched to the Nationwide Treasury in tranches of Ksh500 million ($3.3 million) yearly.
In October 2011, Kenya Defence Forces moved into Somalia to pursue Al Shabaab following a sequence of kidnappings alongside the Kenya-Somalia border.
The next yr, the troops had been formally built-in into the African Union Mission to Somalia (Amisom) underneath the United Nations Safety Council Decision 2036. Amisom would later be transformed into Atmis with a drawdown plan until December 2024.
Mr Duale additional stated compensation for lifeless troopers in Somalia is settled inside 30 days.
“If the officer was serving throughout the nation, they instantly get Ksh4 million ($26, 881) above his pension which has a part known as dying gratuity. If he was serving underneath Atmis like in Somalia, other than the Ksh4 million the AU and the UN give that household Ksh5 million ($33,602),” Duale advised the Nationwide Meeting with out revealing what number of troopers and officers who’ve died in Somalia.
Of their decade’s keep in Somalia, KDF have come underneath at the very least three heavy assaults from Al Shabaab, the worst stays the January 2016 assault at a KDF Ahead Working Base in El Adde.
One other try was made the next yr in Kulbiyow with much less casualties and yet one more in 2012 at Hoosingo additionally with much less casualties.
The troops have through the years not solely destroyed terrorists’ cells in Somalia that may have in any other case been used to plan assaults in Kenya but in addition skilled Somali forces, safe the locals and offered drugs, water and educated ladies on various sources of revenue.
This week, Duale stated greater than 4,000 KDF troops will likely be leaving Somalia as scheduled by the UN regardless of the current request by Somalia to delay scheduled September drawdowns by three months.
Supply: The East African
