By Aminata Phidelia Allie
Head of peace keeping operations in the Sierra Leone Police has revealed that the country has the highest number of officers on peace keeping missions than any other country in Africa.
Assistant Inspector General Kalia Sesay told a press conference at the police headquarters in Freetown that that was “a manifestation of how fast the country has grown since its civil war ended in 2002”.
He said there were about 132 police officers on peace keeping missions in Darfur, South Sudan and Somalia, “where troops from other countries have already left”, adding that the UN greatly relied on the SLP. He said the number of female peace keeping personnel had also increased tremendously since 2010.
“Thus, the country was ranked 4th amongst top ten contributors of female police officers and 3rd amongst top ten individual police officer contributors without a Form Police Unit in June 2011”, the police boss said. He added that the percentage of female officers also increased from 2% to 54% between 2010 and 2012.
“Recently, 304 female officers have gone through the Selecting Assessment Assistance Test (SAAT), an exam conducted by both the African Union and the United Nations for officers before they are deployed on peacekeeping missions,” he explained.
As it is, he went on, they were engaging the Italian police institute called the Centre Of Excellence for Stability Police Unit (COESPU), adding that ten officers had already been trained in gender, civil-military relations, high risk operations and possession of civilians.
(C) Politico 26/02/14
