KAMPALA, 18 May 2007 – The Ugandan military said Friday that the African Union (AU) was giving 50,000 dollars in compensation to each family of the five Ugandan soldiers who have been killed since April on a peacekeeping mission in crisis-ridden Somalia.

Four Ugandan soldiers died and five others were injured Wednesday in the Somali capital Mogadishu when a bomb suspected to have been planted by hardline Islamic insurgents exploded on a roadside.

Another Ugandan soldier died in April in cross-fire with militia fighters in war-wrecked Mogadishu. Uganda is the only country that sent 1,500 peace-keepers to Somalia out of the 8,000 requested for by the AU to restore peace in the Horn of African nation that has been ravaged by a 15-year civil war mounted by militia war lords.

'The AU will give 50,000 dollars in compensation to each family of the dead soldiers. The money will come as soon as possible as it is in a memorandum of understanding between the AU and the Ugandan government,' army spokesman major Felix Kulayigye told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa by telephone.

'As for the injured, the amount of money will depend on the level of the damage,' Kulayigye added.

The bodies of the dead soldiers were flown back to Uganda Thursday and are being kept in a military hospital in Kampala from where they will be taken for burial by their families at their respective homes, Kulayigye told dpa.  

Source: DPA