FEATURE-Ugandan peacekeepers wait for back-up in Mogadishu

By Guled Mohamed

MOGADISHU, July 9 (Reuters) - Wearing reflective life jackets and clutching their rifles in the ocean spray, peacekeepers from landlocked Uganda patrol the Mogadishu coastline in speedboats, wary of insurgents onshore and pirates out at sea.

Stretched to the limit trying to patrol Somalia's capital under an African Union (AU) mandate that called for four times as many soldiers, the 1,600-strong Ugandan force has been pushed to the fringes of the chaotic, labyrinthine city.

"Mogadishu needs at least 5,000 troops in order to monitor peace," Captain Paddy Ankunda, the spokesman for the AU mission, told Reuters in an interview.

"We will create security gaps if we go beyond the triangle," he said, referring to a slice of the city covering the air and sea ports, a key junction and the hilltop presidential palace.

The AU force is supposed to grow eventually to some 8,000 soldiers to help Somalia's interim government impose its authority in Mogadishu, which it seized from an Islamic movement with Ethiopian military help earlier this year.

Few African nations have volunteered to deploy troops, and others have done so but then backed out. Nigeria, Malawi and Burundi are all still expected to send soldiers.

For now, the Ugandans are on their own.

Five Ugandan peacekeepers have been killed by insurgent attacks since they arrived in the Somali capital on March 1.

They have won friends by distributing water and drugs to refugees from fighting between Ethiopian forces and clan militiamen, destroying lethal scattered munitions and treating civilians for free at its own meagre medical facilities.

But guerrilla strikes targeting mostly government troops and their Ethiopian allies -- and the AU mission too -- have become near daily occurrences in a city that has not known peace since warlords ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

"EXPLOSIONS EVERYWHERE"

The Ugandans have been able to secure the country's sea and air ports, which are essential for imports of food, fuel and humanitarian supplies.

The airport is a beehive of activity, with civilian planes landing regularly as Ugandan troops in dark green fatigues, body armour and helmets sit at guns behind defensive sand bags.

White AU armoured trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns patrol the perimeter.

A U.N./U.S. peacekeeping mission floundered here in the mid-1990s amid civil war after Barre's overthrow 16 years ago.

Since then, the Horn of Africa nation has been mired in chaos, with thousands of civilians dying from conflict and famine. President Abdullahi Yusuf's interim government is the 14th attempt at setting up central rule.

While they wait for more AU troops aimed at making sure Yusuf's effort is successful, the Ugandan peacekeepers say they have gone back to the drawing board after being confronted with a growing insurgency limiting their movement.

"Explosions are everywhere," Ankunda said of the rubble-strewn city's dusty streets and poor neighbourhoods.

To guard the sea port -- a vital lifeline for the interim government and the AU mission itself -- the peacekeepers are now taking to the turquoise waves in speedboats.

Even though Uganda is landlocked in the centre of Africa, Ankunda said many of his man had maritime skills learned on Lake Victoria, the continent's biggest lake.

But they could still not venture too far from shore and their base at Mogadishu's southern tip because of Somali pirates prowling the Indian Ocean shipping lanes further out at sea.

"We don't go into the dark waters which are hostile," Ankunda said. "We don't have that capacity to go deeper."

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