Kenya’s president threatens to pull out KDF from Somalia if EU fails to fill funding gaps

 Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta threatened that Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers might pull out of Somalia if the international community does not fill funding gaps for the operation.

Speaking at the meeting with UN Security Council delegation on Friday, Kenyatta said that the funding cuts to African Union peace-keeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM) troops will be huge burden and will not be filled by troop contributing countries.

“As one of AMISOM’s major troop contributing countries, Kenya is questioning whether it was worth the huge cost. [President] Kenyatta asserted that AMISOM was not getting the support it needed in terms of resources and equipment, and argued that the UN needed to take on a much greater role,” the UN Security Council Report stated on Friday.

Kenyatta said it was not Kenya’s role to close the funding gap and the logical conclusion would be for Kenya to pull out its troops.

Kenya has 3,664 soldiers operating under the framework of AMISOM, who  are in Lower and Middle Juba.

In January, the EU cut its budget to AMISOM by 20 per cent and guaranteed  that the European body gives $1,028 AMISOM per month with no other allowances.

On 15th January 2016, fighters from the Al-Shabaab group launched attack on base for Kenyan troops in El-Adde town in southwestern where the group boasted to have killed over sixty Kenya soldiers.