UN to start troop pullout on Wednesday

Some 180 soldiers in a Mozambican contingent are set to leave Burundi on 28 December, marking the start of the withdrawal of the UN Mission there known as ONUB. "The pullout comes in accordance with the Burundi government's wish for a progressive disengagement of UN troops," Gen Derrick Ngwebi, the UN commander in Burundi, said during a news conference on Thursday. The new government is largely made up of members of a former rebel group during the 12-year civil war, the Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie-Forces pour la defense de la démocratie, which won UN-supported elections held earlier in 2005. All of the roughly 5,000 UN peacekeepers in Burundi will leave by June 2006, Ngwebi said. In February, the 817 peacekeepers of the Kenyan battalion will leave. Then, in March, the 640-strong Ethiopian contingent will leave along with 60 physicians from Jordan and 224 Pakistani engineers. Ngwebi said the pullout of troops from South Africa, the largest contributor to the mission, would start in April 2006.