Sierra Leone’s contingent of the AU’s Peacekeeping Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) will deploy any time after June, Defence ministry spokesman Ken Jabbi told Africa Review on Saturday.At least 850 men and women have now been identified after undergoing months of pre-training exercise for deployment in the war-ravaged Horn of African nation.Sierra Leone Defence Minister Alfred Paulo Conteh last month finally signed the agreement at the AU Commission in Ethiopia for the eventual deployment.According to Sierra Leonean military spokesman, the troops, drawn from various units in the army, have just concluded their pre-African Contingent Training Assistance course with the support of the Freetown-based International Military Advisory Training Team, mainly British-led foreign forces, which have been training the Sierra Leone military since the end of the country’s 11-year civil war.“They underwent training basically on the standards of international peacekeeping operations of both the African Union and the United Nations,” Maj. Jabbi said, adding that presently they were conducting training for commanders, to be followed by a full-time training of the battalion until their departure date.
Sierra Leone, together with Djibouti, Nigeria and Malawi, had promised to send in their troops to help contain the two decade-long unrest in Somalia which has since transformed into a ‘war on terror’.
Sierra Leone which Sierra Leone promised to send its troops to Somalia to boost the AU Mission in the country is banking on their experience in the civil war which ended in 2002.
“It is going to be a challenge but it won’t be the first time our men will be exposed to such a situation,” Maj. Jabbi admitted.
Source: African Review
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