Military, police and civilian personnel from six countries that are part of the Eastern Africa Standby Force on Monday started a five-day training at Rwanda Peace Academy (RPA) in Musanze, a training that is aimed at raising peacekeepers' awareness on their personal-safety while conducting peace support operations.

While opening the course, the Director of Rwanda Peace Academy, Col Jill Rutaremara said that once deployed, military, police and civilian peacekeepers face a variety of threats and harm, both natural and human-made.

"Peacekeepers find themselves in conflicts that are largely intra-state in nature with belligerent forces that often have little or no respect for to peacekeepers lives. They are sometimes targeted and killed, ambushed, abducted and assaulted,” he told them. 

Rutaremara further noted that under such absurd situations, much could be done to enhance peacekeepers’ safety and security through threat assessment and minimisation of risks which is the essence of such training.

Speaking about his experience during a peacekeeping mission in Somalia, Lt Col Chris Ogumelaki from Uganda People’s Defence Forces said that challenges are sometimes linked to the UN mandate. 

He said that the mandate outlines what weaponry and equipment to deploy and in some cases can restrict types of military equipment which are essential for a specific situation for the safety of peacekeepers. 

Evelyne Andrew Batamuliza, the lead facilitator in this course who is also the Security Advisor to the UN Department of Safety and Security in Rwanda said that before deployment peacekeepers receive pre-deployment training. 

She added that whatever best briefing the situation in the field is constantly evolving. "It requires constant monitoring as an individual and the intelligence of understanding what is really happening and what is your role”. 

She said that participants to the training are going to discuss the challenges and assess the risks in deployment and see how peacekeepers would insure their safety before they protect others.

The course is attended by 29 military, police and civilian officials from Comoros, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.

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