According to a news release issued today by the UN peacekeeping force in the DRC (MONUSCO), training started earlier this week for police officers at the Lake Tanganyika district and will continue for three weeks, ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections slated for 27 November.
Officers will receive joint training by UN Police (UNP) in South Kivu and the Congolese National Police Force (PNC) on the maintenance and restoration of law and public order as well as on technical and professional interventions.
The training will be both theoretical and practical, and will include hands-on training on crowd and public protest management techniques.
The initiative is part of an ongoing UN mandate to provide stability to the country and support for the restoration of the Government.
Since 1999, the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC – with some 19,000 uniformed personnel currently on the ground – has overseen the vast country’s emergence from years of civil war and factional chaos, culminating most notably in 2006 with the first democratic elections in over four decades. But fighting has continued sporadically in the east, where the bulk of UN forces are deployed.