Ethiopia withdraws troops from militant-encircled Burhakaba in Somalia as AUSSOM faces mounting crisis

MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Ethiopian troops serving under the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) have withdrawn from Burhakaba, a strategic Bay region town ringed on every side by Al-Shabaab, handing security responsibility to the Somali National Army after nearly twelve years in place — a transfer that lands squarely inside the most precarious funding crisis the mission has faced since its founding.

AUSSOM said in a statement that it had, with support from the UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS), officially handed over the mission’s forward operating base in Burhakaba to the 60th Division of the Somali National Army on 8 August. The base had been held since 2014 by Ethiopian National Defence Forces under AUSSOM’s Sector 3 command. The mission described the handover as a step toward Somalia assuming lead responsibility for its own security, part of a gradual transfer of duties to national forces.