Gambian MPs have voted affirmatively for the sending of peacekeeping troops to Sierra Leone to protect a shaky peace after recent upheavals in the country.
Deputies on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly for a motion to contribute troops to a West African peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone where tension still prevails following an abortive coup almost a year ago which former president Ernest Bai Koroma was accused of orchestrating.
Koroma who was charged with treason over the bloody coup attempt, has been in exile in Nigeria since he was allowed to leave the country on health grounds.
Gambian vice president Momodou Jallow was in the national assembly onTuesday to defend and seek support for a government motion to contribute a motorized infantry to Ecowas’s stabilisation drive which the regional organisation will be funding in full, including troop allowances.
Ecowas has resolved to establish a peeacekeeping in Sierra Leone to prevent a repeat of a devastating 11-year civil war which rocked the country between 1991 and 2002.
In the past The Gambia despite having one of the smallest armies in West Africa has contributed troops to peacekeeping operations in the region including the famed ECOMOG t the height of the first Liberian civil war in the early 1990s.
Ecowas already has peacekeeping missions in The Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau.
WN/as/APA