Uganda-Somalia: UN donates to peacekeeping troops in Somalia

(SomaliNet) The African Union/AMISOM troops in Somalia have received military equipments that include landmine detectors, bulletproof jackets and other apparatuses that are used for demolishing landmines.

The equipment was donated by UNDP and UN Mine Action officials who arrived in Mogadishu on Tuesday.

Edie Boyle, the head of UN programme on rule of law and security, said they have brought the equipment to enable the AU forces in the unstable city, Mogadishu, to remove and destroy the landmines.

“We brought 15 sets of protective clothing, 15 landmine detectors and other tools. This is to help our colleagues in the African Union to deal with the explosives that have been handed over to them,” he said.

He pointed out that they were planning to work with Somalia Action Mine agencies to help the Somali troops to be able to de-mine their own homeland after more than 16 years of civil war.

He said they would set up a training centre in Mogadishu and Baidoa, which is 245 kilometres south of the capital. “And we are going to set up a mine action center as soon as we can next month and then we will kick off the mine action programme for the Somali transitional government,” he said.

The Ugandan (AMISOM) troops in Mogadishu detonated massive accumulations of diverse weapons in Muriyo near Halane, a former Somalia army training academy, now a base for AU troops, last month.

They also removed several mines from neighborhoods in north Mogadishu where Ethiopian backed Somali troops and Islamic insurgents have battled on March and April of this year.

Boyle stopped short to comment on the number of landmines in the strife-riddled country which has had no effective central government since the ouster of former dictator, Siad Barre in 1991.-NewVison