Uganda Leaves Somalia After 20 Years and Nobody Knows Who Takes Over

Twenty years. That is how long Ugandan soldiers have been fighting and dying in Somalia, and now the bill is coming due with no plan to pay it. Four bases near Mogadishu are being emptied. The men who held them are going home. And the African Union admits, in writing, that it is not yet clear who will occupy those positions once the Ugandans leave.

Ask yourself what happens in a vacuum. In Somalia, we already know. Al-Shabaab does not need an invitation. It moves into the gaps left by governments that cannot pay their soldiers, cannot hold their territory, and cannot tell their own citizens where the next stage of the mission is headed. Every abandoned checkpoint is a recruitment office for the jihadists who have spent the last two decades turning Somali markets into killing fields.

Here is what the record shows. A letter from the African Union mission to the United Nations support office in Mogadishu confirms a plan to replace departing Ugandan troops at four bases near the capital, to prevent al-Shabaab from exploiting the gap. Uganda's government says every one of its troops will be out of Somalia by the end of 2027. These Ugandan soldiers were deployed under a bilateral agreement with Somalia's government, and Uganda also contributes to the wider African Union force. That means the same army is exiting one structure while remaining inside another, and the African public has not been told how those two commitments fit together.

The troops are also leaving from a port town, Barawe, roughly 220 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu. Barawe is not a symbol. It is a coastline, a supply route, and a strategic prize that has changed hands in the fighting. Leaving it means moving the front line, and moving the front line means someone must absorb the risk. Who? The letter does not say. The African Union has not said. Uganda has not said. Somalia's federal government, which should be the first to answer, has been conspicuously quiet on the question of what it can actually hold.

This is the pattern we keep refusing to name. For two decades, African soldiers have carried the weight of a state-building project that the Somali state itself has never fully owned. Ugandan, Burundian, Ethiopian, Kenyan, and Egyptian troops have bled in a country where the central government's authority often stops at the edge of the airport. Foreign partners have written checks, funded salaries, and built bases, yet the Somali army remains underpaid, under-equipped, and too often loyal to clans rather than the nation. When a foreign force leaves, the question is never "Can Somalis govern themselves?" The question is "Who is paying for Somali security, and do they have any intention of stopping?"

Uganda's own house deserves the same scrutiny. Museveni has ruled since 1986, and while Ugandan soldiers defend a fragile Somali government abroad, opposition figures at home have been arrested, beaten, and dragged through courts that rarely resemble independent institutions. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented repeated abuses against critics and protesters in Uganda over many years. A government that exports its army as a symbol of regional leadership while suppressing its own citizens is not a model of democratic statecraft. It is a warning. Ugandans should ask why their sons are fighting for stability in Mogadishu while the rights of their own voters are treated as disposable.

Let us be clear about who benefits from this confusion. Al-Shabaab benefits. Corrupt contractors benefit. Every military mission that runs on donor money and political improvisation benefits the people who profit from chaos. Who bleeds? The Somali mother who has no idea whether the next soldier at the checkpoint will be paid. The Ugandan family waiting for a flag-draped coffin that was never supposed to be part of a "peacekeeping" operation. And the Somali child whose school closes the moment the militants return to the district.

So what should happen? Start with transparency. The African Union should publish a binding, dated handover plan for all four bases, naming the units, the troop numbers, the equipment, and the payment arrangements. A mission that cannot tell its own citizens who holds the ground is not a mission. It is a press release. The UN Security Council must stop treating African peacekeeping as a charity case and fund it through predictable, assessed contributions, not the begging bowl that leaves soldiers unpaid for months at a time. Somalia's federal government must publish its own security budget, show exactly how much it pays its army, and submit to independent audits of every dollar that passes through its ministries. Good governance is not a luxury for Somalia. It is the only exit strategy that works.

Look at where the better model already lives. Somaliland, which has never received formal international recognition, has held competitive multiparty elections and handed power peacefully between parties, something much of the Horn of Africa still cannot claim. Botswana has built one of the continent's most durable records of stability through strong institutions, consistent elections, and careful management of public resources. Senegal proved in 2024 that peaceful transfer of power is possible even after tense moments, when courts and citizens refused to let elites rewrite the rules. Those are the building blocks: independent courts, accountable budgets, competitive elections, and a private sector that creates jobs so young men do not become recruits for whoever pays first. Somalia needs all of them, and it needs them before the last Ugandan boot leaves.

Civil society in Mogadishu and Kampala must demand answers, not just applause. Somali journalists and parliamentarians should press the government to name the forces taking over those bases and the date they arrive. Ugandan MPs should demand a full public accounting of the cost of this deployment in lives, money, and opportunity, and a clear explanation of why it has taken twenty years to reach a withdrawal date. Private businesses that depend on stable trade routes should back those demands, because no investor will commit capital to a port town where the security map changes every season.

We are tired of being the continent that sends its children to die for other people's plans. Enough. Uganda has spent two decades carrying a burden that Somalia has never been able to carry alone, and now it is leaving with the bases still unassigned and the enemy still waiting. If no one in Addis, Kampala, Mogadishu, or New York takes responsibility for what comes next, then the next headline will be a massacre, and it will be written about us as if we had no say in it.

Demand the handover plan in writing. Demand the names of the forces taking over. Demand the budget, the audit, and the date. Call your MP, your editor, and your government. Do it this week, because al-Shabaab is not waiting for the African Union to finish its letters.

Based on reporting by ACSS-EMAIL