Saturday January 26, 2019
A senior Ugandan police official is on a week-long working visit to Somalia to carry out assessment of personnel and audit the status of contingent-owned equipment, the African Union mission said on Friday.
Grace Turyagumanawe, director of peace support operations in the Uganda Police Force, who is leading a delegation of police officers, held talks with the AU Special Representative for Somalia, Francisco Madeira in Mogadishu, where they discussed the policing of the AU mission.
“We have brought new spares, which we want to use to repair our machinery and put them to good use,” Turyagumanawe who is the assistant Inspector General of Police, said according to a statement issued by AMISOM.
The AU mission is seeking to deploy to Somalia additional police officers to boost the numbers in the Formed Police Units, in line with the UN Security Council Resolution which recommends an increment in numbers of formed police personnel in the Mission.
Ghana and Djibouti have offered to provide the additional numbers required.
Uganda is one of the six police contributing countries to AMISOM and has a 160-strong contingent of Formed Police personnel deployed in the Horn of Africa country, in addition to Independent Police Officers, who mentor, advice and train Somali police officers.
Turyagumanawe and his delegation will also assess the welfare of police contingent from Uganda.