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The Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) graduated 3,237 soldiers on Friday (July 27th) to replace other soldiers fighting under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), Uganda's New Vision reported.
The troops completed four months of training at Singo Military Centre, and will depart for Mogadishu after one month of leave.
After a ceremony in which graduates demonstrated their new skills, UPDF reserve force commander Major General Levy Karuhanga commended the troops' readiness.
"The skills demonstrated imply you are ready to take up the mandate," he said. "It is a manifestation of the maturity needed to pursue terrorists and restore calm among the Somalis, which had been denied to them by al-Shabaab."
"You will be joining AMISOM after Somalia's general elections, a situation that will require keeping maximum peace," he said. "However, the situation may change from being peaceful; whenever it does, you must also change."
This group will be the tenth Ugandan contingent to go to Somalia since it joined AMISOM in 2007. They will relieve the eighth group, which will return to Kampala after the new group arrives.
School commandant Colonel Stephen Kashure urged the graduates to uphold the standard of the Singo Military Centre, which has sent seven other groups to Somalia since its founding in August 2011. "The performance of the first groups has shown that what seemed mission impossible has become mission manageable," he said.
The UPDF recently more than doubled its budget for Somalia. The Ugandan contingent comprises 6,700 of AMISOM's 17,730 troops.