20101102
africanews

The Djibouti republic is training 600 Somali police to support the Somali government bring peace in Somalia. The African Union commission deputy special representative Wafula Wamunyinyi told reporters in Nairobi on Monday that two hundred police men will take three months training in Manyani, Kenya.

Mr Wamunyinyi who was accompanied by African Union Mission to Somalia police commissioner Hudson Benzu, said 80 senior officers will be trained in Rwanda and South Africa from January, next year.

Hudson said all 7000 police officers currently working in Somalia also require training to confirm to have a strong and capable police force conforming to international standards.

“We intend to ensure that areas falling under Amisom control will be under police, not soldiers, to ensure law and order in Somalia,” Wamunyinyi said.

The officials said the relation between officers and members of the public was important in bring back order and law.

However the two officials said the AU forces now control 50 percent of the Somali capital Mogagadishu, where it was reported that mostly runs islamist rebels.

“Since April, AMISOM troops have been taking ground from armed opposition groups in the city by establishing series of combat outposts in areas previously in the hands of insurgents,” Mr Wamunyinyi said in the neighbouring Kenya capital Nairobi.

He noted that life in Mogadishu is returning to normalcy with people moving around. Local Human rights and business community in Mogadishu accused AU force for destroying Somali business in the main market of Bakara in Mogadishu.

AMISOM were also accused for indiscriminately shells to civilian’s village in Mogadishu. The African Union mission to Somalia is also waiting UN mandate to increase AMISOM forces form 8, 000 to 20,000.

Mr Wamunyinyi said 12,000 troops, up from the current 8,000, will be in Mogadishu and remaining ones deployed to other parts of the country.

Last week, AfricaNews had published an exclusive report which shows that unpaid Somali soldiers offered their guns to Islamist rebels.

“The biggest source for rebels’ arms is government forces. Unpaid soldiers get money from rebels and then hand to their arms”, said a former Chief of Staff of Somalia's Military, Maj.General Osman in an exclusive interview with AfricaNews.

Those who sell their guns to Islamist insurgents are part of hundred of Somali soldiers trained with U.S. and EU funds in the neighbouring countries. The soldiers were trained in Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Uganda and Sudan.

Only United States spent $6.8 million to train almost 2,100 Somali soldiers in Djibouti and Uganda over the past year.

The European Union also paid €5 million ($6 million) for the training 2,000 Somali forces in Uganda.