BDF To Attend Large Scale AU Military Exercise

Lebogang Mosikare | Monday October 19, 2015 12:04

According to Times Live, South Africa will host a large-scale military exercise featuring several African nations from October 19 to November 7‚ Lieutenant-General Derrick Mgwebi‚ the South African Defence Force’s Chief of Joint Operations‚ said recently.

Mgwebi said the aim of the Amani Africa II field training exercise‚ which is being conducted by the African Union (AU)‚ is to evaluate the state of readiness of the African Standby Force (ASF) and to exercise its rapid deployment capability (RDC). The exercise will be held at the Army Combat Training Centre in the Northern Cape. Amani Africa is a ki-Swahili phrase meaning ‘Peace in Africa’.

The exercise was originally planned to be conducted in Lesotho in November and December last year. However‚ due to the political and security situation in Lesotho at the time‚ it was not feasible to conduct the exercise in the kingdom‚ Mgwebi is quoted by the South African media.

About 5‚400 members from the military‚ police and civilian components representing four of the regional economic regions of the AU will participate in the exercise.

The countries contributing most of the troops for the exercise are Angola‚ Botswana‚ Democratic Republic of the Congo‚ Lesotho‚ Malawi‚ Mozambique‚ Namibia‚ South Africa‚ Swaziland‚ Zambia and Zimbabwe. Other contributing and/or participating countries involved in the exercise are Algeria‚ Burundi‚ Egypt‚ Ethiopia‚ Gambia‚ Ghana‚ Kenya‚ Nigeria‚ Rwanda and Uganda.