A three-man team of military instructors from the Special Armed Forces of Malta are in Uganda to take part in the European Union’s training mission, EUTM Somalia.
The mission is the second such deployment of AFM instructors to the Somali training camp, based in Uganda, following the first phase of training of over 200 Somali recruits in April.
The second group of Maltese instructors will form part of a Maltese-Irish team and are undergoing induction training in preparation for the arrival of a second batch of Somali recruits.
The mission, set up by the EU in support of the United Nations 1872 (2009) resolution, aims to improve the living conditions of the Somali people by bringing about a more secure environment in which the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia and its institutions can operate unhindered by the criminal and radical groups in the region.
The mission provides Somali soldiers with infantry training in order to improve their capability to counter threats to national security.
This is not the first EU crisis management operation the AFM have taken part in. Two Maltese monitors are based in Gori, Georgia, together with 250 EU monitors, to oversee the administrative boundary line which separates Georgia from the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Their main task is to patrol, observe and report on the situation to help secure a peaceful environment for the local population.
Since November 2008, the AFM have also contributed an officer to the EU’s anti-piracy mission, Operation Atalanta. The work, at the UK headquarters, is aimed at combating acts of piracy occurring off the coast of Somalia.
As part of the same operation, Malta last year deployed a 12-man vessel-protection detachment in the Gulf of Aden on board a Dutch military vessel. Preparations were underway to deploy a second detachment, the AFM said.
