Thursday 18th May 2017

Somalia’s peaceful election of a new President had opened a unique opportunity to surmount entrenched insecurity, political and humanitarian challenges and create a functional State in the coming four years, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council today.

Urging international support to help the Somali authorities realize that vision, Raisedon Zenenga, the Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Somalia, said that the country’s Federal Government and the leaders of its federal member states had concluded a political agreement on the national security architecture. That framework defined the size, structure, composition, command-and-control structure and financing for Somalia’s security forces.

Read more here from ReliefWeb here.

Somali soldiers march during celebrations of the 55th anniversary of the establishment of the Somali military force. Photo/AFP