Photo: UNOPS / Alexis Stergakis

30 December 2019 – 385 new police recruits from South West State have this week graduated from a six-months training at the General Kahye Police Academy in Mogadishu, and will be deployed to police units in Lower Shabelle. Twenty-four of the new police officers are women. The training was carried out by AMISOM and Somali Police Force trainers, with the support of the United Nations, and was based on the ‘Basic Recruit Curriculum’, developed with the assistance of EUCAP Somalia.

The parade and ceremony was overseen by the President of South West State, Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed ‘Laftagareen’, and led by the Somali Police Force Commissioner, Maj. Gen. Abdi Hassan Mohamed.  The Director General of the Federal Ministry of Internal Security, Ahmed Abdi Koshin, also took part in the event, together with the AMISOM Police Commissioner, Augustine Kailie; the Acting Director of INTERPOL Mogadishu, Colonel Abdikadir Muse; and EUCAP Somalia and UN representatives.

Speaking during the ceremony, Jan Swaan, Chief of Police Advisory Unit for EUCAP Somalia, congratulated the new police officers on their graduation and start of their professional career, and highlighted the importance of female police in building peace and security in Somalia.

“I especially want to congratulate the twenty-four women who have graduated today and I would like you to encourage other women to join the police force. As half of the population are women, it follows that half of the force should be female, to increase the effectiveness and outreach of community policing,” Mr. Swaan said.

The training of the new recruits and deployment to Lower Shabelle follows the New Police Model agreed by the Federal Government of Somalia and Federal Member States in 2016. The new police officers are the first group to be trained for Lower Shabelle region.

The six months training was led by the Government of Somalia and the Somali Police Force, in partnership with: the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), the United Nations Police (UNPOL), the United Nations Project Services (UNOPS), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and EUCAP Somalia. It is funded by the European Union, UK Aid and Germany,  as part of a Joint Police Programme.