DR Congo police receive UN training ahead of local elections

The United Nations has begun training the first of some 75,000 policemen in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in preparation for local elections, the world body’s peacekeeping mission there said.

The mission, known as MONUC, said much of the training is an update of a course already received by members of the Congolese National Police (PNC) in previous years.

The instruction includes the management of queues in front of polling stations, the escort and transport of the material to the local centres of compilation and the evacuation of currently illegally occupied buildings, MONUC said.

The aim of the first stage of the programme is to train 2,578 agents from the various police stations of Kinshasa, who will be deployed in 143 registration centres in the capital for a revision of the electoral rolls. The training will continue at a national level in the coming weeks starting with the PNC of Bas-Congo.

The revision of the electoral roll, regarded as the first step towards the next local elections, begins on 7 June in Kinshasa and in Bas-Congo, and on 3 August in the nine other provinces.