Twenty participants from seven countries are undergoing a ten-day training on protection of civilians in peace keeping operations.

The training, which kicked off on Monday at Rwanda Peace Academy in Musanze, aims at equipping officers from military, police and civil institutions with skills that will help them protect civilians during peace keeping operations, according to Col. Jill Rutaremara, the academy’s director.

Rutaremara said such training is significant as civilians especially children and women suffer most from conflict.

He added that protection of civilians has become more critical than ever in the recent past because women and children are deliberately targeted during conflicts.

"Lack of protection of civilians has resulted into gross violations of human rights such as loss of life, forced recruitment, abductions, sexual violence and psychological trauma,” Rutaremara said.

"Protection of civilians in the context of peacekeeping operations is important because the presence of peacekeepers in the conflict area often offers some hope among the vulnerable people,” he added.

Rutaremara also stressed that failure to protect civilians undermines the credibility of peacekeeping missions, troops and police contributing countries, and the United Nations as a whole citing the case of United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (Unamir) that failed to prevent the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

He noted that civilian protection in peacekeeping faces some challenges such as compliance, inadequate resources, failure to prioritise the available resources in accordance with the risk, failure to delineate clear roles and responsibilities of the various actors involved in protection of civilians and poor coordination.

The training was funded by the United Nations Institute of Training and Research (Unitar) which also provided training of trainers programme that preceded the training.

Dr Andreas Anderson, the lead facilitator from Unitar, said protection of civilians is vital, adding that the training will help beneficiaries play a key role in protecting civilians in their respective countries.

The training is centered on the genesis and context of civilian protection, the legal framework, and the challenges faced while protecting civilians, according to Anderson.

This training will help future peacekeepers understand civilian protection process and the imperative to do it, he said.