Addis Ababa: The worsening crisis in Somalia is as big a threat to global security as Afghanistan but is being ignored by the world, delegates told an African Union summit on Sunday.
Somalia's UN-backed transitional government is fighting an Islamist insurgency and has been hemmed into a few streets of the capital Mogadishu.
An African Union (AU) peacekeeping force of 5,000, provided by Burundi and Uganda, is struggling to hold back the rebels. The AU has repeatedly asked for UN peacekeepers to bolster its efforts but has only been given funding.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon attended the AU's annual summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Sunday and again failed to pledge peacekeepers.
"In Somalia, recent events have tragically shown that the conflict has a direct bearing on global security," Ban told about 30 African leaders.
Later at a news briefing, Ban said the United Nations was still considering "whether conditions are right for a peacekeeping operation”.
Violence in Somalia has killed 21,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and uprooted 1.5 million people, a contributing cause of one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.
Bureau Report
First Published: Monday, February 01, 2010, 11:54