The first batch of 100 Burundian peacekeepers arrived on Sunday after months of delay caused by lack of equipment.
The small central African country has pledged to deploy a total of 1,700 soldiers to Somalia to join some 1,600 Ugandan soldiers based in Mogadishu.
The AU pledged in September 2006 to send 8,000 peacekeepers to the Horn of African nation, which has been plagued by civil conflict since 1991, but after Uganda Burundi is only the second country to have sent troops.
"This is the advance party for the main deployment of the Burundi forces will be part of the African Union Mission in Somalia," the AU force commander General Levi Karuhanga told reporters.
Burundi's army spokesman said Sunday in Bujumbura that a first full battalion of 800 men was expected to be deployed next month.
The Somali government, represented by Mogadishu deputy mayor Ahmed Tahlil Warsame, welcomed the deployment.
"We are pleased to receive the Burundi force because Somalia wants a strong peacekeeping force ... This is a strong encouragement for the Somali government and people," he added.
A Burundian peacekeeper, who requested to remain unnamed, said his contingent will show determination to perform its duties "if the Somali people allow us to keep peace in the country and cooperate with the mission."
West African military powerhouse Nigeria is also to send soldiers to Somalia in the next two or three months.
The United Nations estimates that since 600,000 civilians have been displaced and thousands of others killed since the Somali government, backed by Ethiopian troops, forced out Islamist forces in January.
The Somali government and its Ethiopian supporters charge the figures are exaggerated.
SOURCE: AFP, December 24, 2007