CAIRO, June 10 (Reuters) - The Arab League said on Sunday it had donated $1 million to support African Union (AU) forces in war-ravaged Somalia, an Arab League member state. "This sum is the first phase," Samir Hosni, who deals with African affairs at the league, said. "This amount is from the Arab League and not the Arab countries." Hosni said the Cairo-based organisation had already sent $15 million to support the struggling African Union forces in Darfur, and $1 million to AU peacekeeping forces to monitor elections in the Comoros Islands. Ethiopian and Somali interim government troops have shouldered most of the financial burden of fighting the Somali insurgency which has raged since they took control of the capital Mogadishu in late December. A number of African countries have pledged troops to the envisioned 8,000-strong AU force, but so far only Uganda has sent peacekeepers into Somalia. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi called on the U.N. Security Council on Saturday to finance the African Union peacekeeping forces in Somalia so that Ethiopian troops could withdraw.
