Museveni Is Pulling Ugandan Troops From Somalia While al-Shabab Still Fights

Ask a Somali mother in Mogadishu what the African Union mission has meant to her, and she will tell you about the years of waiting. She waited for the bombs to stop, for the roads to open, for the markets to reopen, and for a government that could protect her children without foreign boots on every corner. Eighteen years after Uganda became the first country to send soldiers to Somalia, she is still waiting.

On Monday, Kampala announced it had begun pulling its troops out. The announcement offered very little. No timeline was spelled out in detail, and no clear account was given of what changed on the ground. Yet the country that gave the African Union mission its first contingent is now leaving, and al-Shabab has not been defeated. That should trouble every African who believes our security belongs in our hands.

Let us be precise about what Uganda committed itself to. In March 2007, the Ugandan People's Defence Force (UPDF) became the first troop contributor to AMISOM, the African Union Mission in Somalia, later rebranded as ATMIS and now the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission (AUSSOM). For nearly two decades, Ugandan soldiers have fought in Mogadishu's streets, on the outskirts of Afgooye, and in the barren stretches of south-central Somalia. Many of them never came home. Their graves are in Somali soil, far from the families who paid the price of their deployment.

Those sacrifices were real, and they deserve respect. But respect for the dead means asking hard questions of the living. Why did a mission that began in 2007 still depend on a funding model that collapses every time donors lose patience? Why did al-Shabab, which the world was told was on the back foot a decade ago, retake towns in central Somalia in 2025? Why does Mogadishu still struggle to pay its own soldiers when the international community keeps writing checks for the mission?

The funding question is not a technicality. It is the difference between a mission that can plan, train, and sustain itself and one that is forced to beg for fuel and food rations every quarter. The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2719 in 2023, which provided a framework for assessed contributions to African-led operations. Washington blocked its full implementation at the time, citing concerns about cost and Somalia's governance. In other words, the powerful nations that lecture Africa about democracy and stability refused to commit the resources needed to make African-led security work, then acted surprised when the operation faltered.

Now, the same question returns. If Kampala leaves, who fills the gap? Who guarantees that the territory cleared at such cost does not slide back into al-Shabab's hands? And who will explain to the families of fallen Ugandan soldiers why their sons' deaths did not produce a stable Somalia?

This is where Africa's leaders have to stop pretending. Somalia is not a foreign-policy experiment for Western think tanks or a bargaining chip for Gulf and Turkish influence. It is a sovereign state of roughly 18 million people, and its future belongs to Somalis. Yet the deepest problem is not only al-Shabab. It is a fragmented political order, disputed elections, weak institutions, and a federal government that too often competes with its own member states instead of governing. Every foreign soldier who arrives without a credible political settlement becomes a temporary plaster on a broken limb.

We have seen what works elsewhere on this continent. Senegal, after years of democratic strain, saw a peaceful transfer of power in 2024 when voters punished a government that tried to manipulate the system. Botswana has built its prosperity on property rights, fiscal discipline, and a professional civil service that outlasts any single politician. Mauritius, with no oil and little land, became one of the continent's most successful economies through open trade, transparent institutions, and an independent judiciary. None of these countries are perfect. All of them prove that when rule of law is respected and power is accountable, Africa can build.

Uganda itself should be asking why its own democracy is so hollow. Yoweri Museveni has been in power since 1986. The January 2026 election, which returned him to office amid internet restrictions and the harassment of opposition candidates, was not a competitive contest by any honest standard. A government that cannot allow its own citizens to vote freely has no moral authority to lecture Somalia about institution-building, and its soldiers deserve a leadership that does not treat their deployment as a political asset to be spent when convenient.

So here is what must happen. Uganda's parliament must demand a full public account of the withdrawal: the timeline, the costs, the number of soldiers returning, and the plan for the territory they leave behind. The Ugandan government should publish the names and the locations of its war dead in Somalia, and provide the compensation and care its veterans are owed. The African Union must present a funded, phased transition plan that does not depend on the goodwill of donors who change their minds with the weather. The UN Security Council must finally implement the financing mechanisms it has already endorsed on paper. And the Federal Government of Somalia must show, through credible elections and transparent revenue sharing with its states, that it can hold the country together without a foreign army propping it up.

Civil society has a role too. Somali journalists, business owners, and women's organizations understand the cost of insecurity better than any diplomat in a hotel conference room. They should be at the table. So should the private sector, which needs predictable trade routes, secure ports, and enforceable contracts to create the jobs that keep young men from joining armed groups in the first place.

And you, reading this, have a part to play. Call your representative. Ask your media to cover this withdrawal with the depth it deserves rather than a single headline. Demand that your government explain its foreign military commitments in public, not in closed-door briefings. Africa's security should not be decided by a handful of officials in capitals that rarely face the consequences of their choices.

We owe the Ugandan soldiers who died in Somalia more than a silent exit. We owe the Somali people more than another cycle of promises and retreat. And we owe ourselves a continent where our security is built on accountable institutions, not on the endless pattern of intervention, withdrawal, and abandonment. Demand the answers now, while there is still time to make the next chapter different.

Based on reporting by FRANCE24