Bodies of UPDF Soldiers Flown Home

Risdel Kasasira and John Njoroge

2 June 2011

The bodies of two UPDF peacekeepers killed in Mogadishu by Somali insurgents on Monday were brought home on Tuesday. The army Spokesperson, Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye, said yesterday they were working on burial modalities with the families of the fallen soldiers.

However, he refused to reveal the identities of the dead but said one hailed from Adjumani and the other from the central region. He promised to reveal their full identities today.

African Union peacekeepers denied they had lost eight soldiers in the attack that has brought the total number of Ugandan soldiers killed in Somalia to 45.

“Who said we lost that number of soldiers? We lost two soldiers on Monday in an al-shabaab attack, one was injured,” Capt. Chris Magezi, the spokesperson of the Ugandan contingent, said yesterday.

Maj. Paddy Ankunda, the spokesperson of African Union Mission for Somalia, said four suicide bombers, driving a saloon car, disguised as government soldiers attacked Amisom positions at Shakala on the Makka Mukarama Road. He said the four attackers were also killed.

At least 8,000 African Union troops composed of Ugandans and Burundians are stationed in Mogadishu to prevent the Transitional Federal Government from being overrun by militants.

The attack occurred three days before the conference on Somalia opens today in Kampala.

The Somalia president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, was expected to attend but sources say he has sent his Prime Minister. The meeting is expected to discuss the internal wrangles threatening to tear apart the TFG.

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