PREVIEW
The EU has thrown AUSSOM a €75 million lifeline pulling the mission back from the brink after questions of US funding – but the money lasts only until June
EU foreign ministers have agreed to commit an additional €75 million (US$87m) to the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission (AUSSOM) in Somalia, in a move that should fund the mission until the end of its current budget year on 30 June.
The cash, which will come from the European Peace Facility, covers almost half of the estimated $190m budget for the period from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026.
The announcement was made following a three-day visit to Addis Ababa by the EU’s International Partnerships Commissioner Jozef Síkela, who announced a series of other funding commitments, including €140m in restored budget support for Ethiopia which had been halted ever since the civil war in Tigray started in 2020, and €100m for new health infrastructure projects.
The EU cash will cover up to 85% of the stipends for the 12,000 personnel deployed in Somalia as well as non-lethal equipment and related services. This latest tranche of funding lifts cumulative EU contributions to AU-led Somalia operations to nearly €2.8 billion since 2007.
The sustainability of the AUSSOM mission was in question for most of last year, largely due to a dispute between United States President Donald Trump and the EU, and a US demand that the United Nations assume responsibility for the bulk of payments for it (AC Vol 66 No 14, Politicians seek a way out of the impasse). That led to African Union Commission chair Mahmoud Ali Youssouf and Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi warning that Somalia could ‘relapse’ without the mission (Dispatches 29/9/25, Slim pickings for Somalia security fund).
In late March, AUSSOM troops, together with the Somali National Armed Forces, killed more than 40 Al-Shabaab fighters in an operation that successfully prevented the terror group from recapturing Mubarak, a town close to the capital Mogadishu, weeks after AUSSOM liberated it.
Days later, AUSSOM forces captured a senior Al-Shabaab commander, identified as Salaad Cusmaan Macalin, close to Mubarak.
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