Regional police officers complete two-week peacekeeping course

Sixty police officers from Burundi, Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti, Kenya and Rwanda yesterday completed United Nations Police Officers Course (UNPOC) at Gishari Police Training Centre.

The two-week UN pre-deployment course prepares police officers who are due to be deployed in different UN missions.

The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Emmanuel Gasana, who presided over the closing ceremony, said the course is part of multinational cooperation to enhance peace.

The IGP said there would be more courses to facilitate peace keeping operations.

“This centre aims at addressing modern security challenges like cyber crimes, terrorism, etc that tend to escalate into full violence. Law enforcers particularly the police,  participate in all sorts of conflict resolutions…the police thus need the expertise provided here,” he said.

The course was  supported by Eastern Africa Standby Force Coordination Mechanism (EASFCOM).

The IGP reiterated the government’s commitment to training police officers, adding that other regional countries should be encouraged to offer similar training.

He said that the regional security framework to end violence and conflicts should be supported maximally.

“Our experience after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi is enormous… We learnt that if a nation is abandoned, it may suffer horrible things as we experienced during the Genocide. That is why our support to countries like Mali is on”.

Major Fadl Ahmed Muhammed, from Sudan, said that the knowledge and skills the participants acquired was crucial for peacekeeping globally.

“The time spent here has been fruitful in professional terms…We used one stone to kill two birds. The skills will help us during international missions and in our daily work back home,” she said.

The New Times