By Alisha Ryu, (VOA) Nairobi, 16 July 2009
The African Union's special envoy to Somalia says the AU has begun recruiting and training Somalis to be soldiers and police officers to help the country's embattled government counter an insurgency led by Islamists with ties to al-Qaida. He says the pan-African body envisions a Somali security force of about 16,000 members in a year's time.
The envoy, Nicholas Bwakira, says the ambitious recruiting and training program for Somalia is a part of the pledge of assistance the United States, the European Union and other key donors made in April at a meeting in Brussels.
More than $200 million was pledged at the conference, much of it earmarked to support Somalia's transitional government's security forces and the 4,300-member African Union's peacekeeping mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM...
"We plan to train 6,000 paramilitary forces and 10,000 policemen," Bwakira said. "This training will be taking place outside Somalia. But some of the training will be done in Somalia. There are already some trainees, who are in Djibouti. So, it already has started and it is going to continue in various countries. We are looking at training time-frame of six to 12 months."
Bwakira says Botswana, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South
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