UN Standing Police Capacity completes first field mission

The United Nations Standing Police Capacity (SPC) has wrapped up its first start-up mission, training recruits for a specialized police unit in Chad that will be responsible for protecting some 300,000 refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the east of the strife-torn country.

The first officers from the SPC arrived in N’Djamena, the Chadian capital, last November to carry out the recruitment and training for the specialized unit, which has been set up with the help of the UN Mission to the Central African Republic and Chad (known as MINURCAT).

The last two members of the SPC involved in the Chadian project left N’Djamena on Friday after the training was completed so that the local police officers are now able to take over security duties in the many camps for refugees and IDPs in eastern Chad. Most of the refugees have fled conflict in the neighbouring Darfur region of Sudan.

The SPC was set up in 2006 after an earlier report commissioned by the then Secretary-General called for a small corps of senior police officers and managers who could undertake mission assessments and organize the start-up of police components of peace operations.

It is tasked with providing immediate start-up capability on the ground, such as it has done in Chad, and with providing rapid support, advice and assistance to the police component of existing UN peace operations.

Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) last week organized two civil-military coordination workshops in Chad to improve the delivery of humanitarian aid and the protection of civilians. The workshops were held in the eastern towns of Goz Beida and Hadjer Hadid.