JOHANNESBURG, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Ghanaian President and current African Union (AU) Chairman John Agyekum Kufuor on Tuesday rubbished reports that the AU would be sending additional peacekeeping troops to conflict-ridden Somalia.

    "I never said immediately, I said the AU wants to send 8,000 peacekeepers as soon as possible but we are having trouble finding the troops," Kufuor was quoted as saying by the SAPA news agency in Pretoria, capital of South Africa, where he was meeting South African President Thabo Mbeki.

    On Monday it was reported that Africa's 53-member bloc would send an extra 8,000 peacekeepers to Somalia, a statement attributed to Kufuor, but on Tuesday he said he was referring to the original deployment of AU troops, not any new ones.

    The AU is struggling to find African countries willing to contribute troops to the peacekeeping force.

    Thus far Uganda has sent 1,400 troops as part of an AU peacekeeping mission to replace Ethiopian troops who entered Somalia last year to help the interim government drive out radical Islamists.

    Ongoing fighting between Somali insurgents and Ethiopian troops has left more than a thousand dead.