AMISOM Police To Deploy In Somalia’s Liberated Areas

The Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (SRCC) for Somalia, Ambassador Maman Sidikou has said that starting March 2016, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) will deploy police in the liberated areas in line with the recent UN Security Council resolution.

While on a working visit to Minnesota in the United States of America, Ambassador Sidikou met and held discussions with Mr. John Harrington, the Minneapolis Metro Transit Police Chief. Minnesota has the largest population of Somalis in the United States.

Ambassador Sidikou briefed Mr. Harrington on the progress made in Somalia and the upcoming deployment of the police in the various sectors, as well as recruitment of Somali police personnel in the liberated areas in order to boost community policing. He added that this is also in line with the provisional Federal constitution in which all regions are entitled to a police force.

Sidikou said, “We (shall) assess and see which other areas that they (Police) can come and deal with law and order and have the army move to go and fight Al-Shabaab wherever they are. So, it’s good we are focusing on community policing because that’s the way to go in Somalia. One of the issues AMISOM forces are facing is that yes, people realize that we are doing good work for them; but we are not really that together. Unless you have the community, you are just shooting in the dark. So, that’s one of the decisions that has made by African Union and the UN benchmarking to look at how we fare so far; and the decision was made to go towards Police.”

During the meeting, Mr. Harrington hailed the initiative to deploy Police in the regions, and added that it would make the public appreciate the Police and enhance community policing with the civilian community sharing information to combat extremism and terrorism.

Mr. Harrington who recently visited Somalia to learn and share policing experiences with the Somali Police Force (SPF) and the AMISOM Police, said his visit had generated a lot of interest in the Somali community living in Minneapolis.

“I have had a lot of conversations with the community here ever since I came back. The question of how safe it is and how much it has improved has come up. I was able to give them what I thought was a very accurate and a very positive report of how much safe it has gotten and how much better the Government system has improved and how much AMISOM is doing in terms of community policing that they are doing and the work that the Somali Police Force are doing in terms of developing their own investigatory, their own tactical approaches,” said Harrington.