Security Council extends mandate of group monitoring flow of arms in Somalia

The Security Council today extended the mandate of an expert group monitoring the arms flow to Somalia.

In a unanimously-adopted resolution, the Council called on the four-member group to “continue to investigate any means of transport, routes, seaports, airports and other facilities used in connections with arms embargo violations.”

The expert group was created by a 2003 resolution to analyze the movement of weapons to and through the war-torn nation, which has not had a functioning government in nearly two decades.

In today’s resolution, the Council condemned “flows of weapons and ammunition supplies to and through Somalia in violation of the arms embargo as a serious threat to peace and stability in Somalia.”

Earlier this week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that some 7,000 people fled the Somali capital Mogadishu after a recent round of fighting that killed a significant number of civilians and reportedly wounded 200 people, including women and children.

Violence drove approximately 700,000 people from Mogadishu last year alone.