16/12/08 (B478) Shabelle : une attaque à la grenade contre un camp du contingent burundais de maintien de la Paix, installé dans une ancienne université. // Grenade attacks on AMISOM base (En Anglais).

Islamist groups have carried out grenade attacks on Former Somali University, a base of Burundian peacekeepers in Mogadishu on Sunday evening, witnesses said.

“We heard heavy explosions in the Burundian base but also we could hear the sounds of gun fire,” a resident told Radio Shabelle.

There is no word about the grenade attacks from the African Union officials in Mogadishu

In other news Burundi is to send another 850 soldiers to bolster an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia amid fears of a security vacuum after the departure of Ethiopian troops, the government said on Monday.

« Burundi has never changed its position … we are planning to send 850 other soldiers. They are ready and we are only waiting for the necessary equipment, » Defence Minister Germain Niyoyankana told a press conference.

The extra troops will join another 1,700 Burundian soldiers who are already serving in an African Union peacekeeping force tasked with trying to bring peace to a country which has been riven by conflict since 1994.

The AU force in Somalia currently comprises 3,400 soldiers from Uganda and Burundi and is expected to eventually number 8,000.