Ghana News Agency
Friday, April 5, 2013
Sierra Leone's peacekeeping troops on Wednesday arrived in Somalia to join the African Union peacekeeping Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
"An advance team from the Sierra Leonean contingent arrived Tuesday in Somalia... They will operate alongside the Kenyan contingent," AMISOM said here in a statement.
The battalion-strong Sierra Leone contingent would be deployed "shortly" to southern Somalia where Kenyan forces were deployed, it said.
AMISOM said the deployment of the Sierra Leonean troops would enable the Kenyans to withdraw one battalion from the region in accordance with a UN Security Council resolution.
"The Special Representative welcomed the deployment of the contingent and said that their integration into AMISOM signifies the commitment across Africa to stabilizing Somalia," said the AMISOM statement.
Sierra Leone was the fifth African country to have contributed troops to the 18,000-strong peacekeeping mission in Somalia alongside troops from Uganda, Djibouti, Burundi and Kenya.