Uganda to withdraw all UPDF troops from Somalia by August 1, 2027, army chief Says – AUSSOM faces major test

MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Uganda is leaving Somalia. All of it, all the way out, on a fixed date – and its army chief said so in the plainest terms Kampala has ever used.

General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda’s Chief of Defence Forces and the son of President Yoweri Museveni, announced on Friday that the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) will complete a total withdrawal from Somalia by August 1, 2027, ending nearly twenty years of continuous Ugandan military presence in the country.

“We are withdrawing completely from Somalia by the 1st of August 2027,” Kainerugaba said. “They will not be UPDF in Somalia after that.”

It is the most categorical statement yet from Kampala on ending its role in Somalia’s war against Al-Shabaab. Uganda has threatened to leave before — more than once — with officials arguing each time that Mogadishu has had nearly two decades to build strong institutions and stabilize the country, and has not done it.

The Private Ultimatum Behind the Public Deadline

The public threat has a private trigger. According to a report by Africa Intelligence, President Museveni personally warned Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud that Uganda would withdraw its forces unless he struck a political settlement with his opposition within one year and ended a domestic political crisis that has kept Somali authorities locked in infighting — time and attention Museveni argued should be going to the security transition and the fight against Al-Shabaab instead.

A Mission Running Out of Money

Kainerugaba’s deadline lands squarely on top of a second, compounding crisis: AUSSOM, the African Union’s peacekeeping mission in Somalia, is running out of money. The United States has announced it will end its support for UN funding of the mission’s logistics — support that has functioned as AUSSOM’s backbone since the mission began.

The UN is already acting on it. UNSOS, the UN Support Office in Somalia that has run those logistics, is preparing to shut down entirely: auctioning off its equipment and laying off staff as it winds down operations, according to the report.

The Fear Everyone Is Trying Not to Say Out Loud

Put the two crises together — a fixed Ugandan exit date and a peacekeeping mission that is running out of both money and machinery — and the question hanging over Mogadishu is blunt: are Somali forces actually ready to hold the line alone, or does a foreign withdrawal on this timeline hand Al-Shabaab the opening it has been waiting years for?

Mogadishu’s Answer: Send Them Home With Flowers

Somalia’s government is not hedging. Earlier this month, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud declared that Somalia is ready to take over its own security, and called on foreign forces to leave — saying his government would give them a farewell and send them home with flowers.

Kampala has now put a date on the calendar. Whether Mogadishu’s confidence holds up against it — or whether AUSSOM’s collapsing finances force the timeline to move even faster — is now the single most consequential question facing Somalia’s security transition.

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