Deputy Defense Minister Opens Conference on National Weapons, Ammunition Management

Mogadishu(Mogadishu24)-Deputy Minister of Defense of the Federal Government of Somalia, Abdifitah Qasim Mohamud on Tuesday Open a two day Conference on National Weapons, Ammunition Management in which Federal Member States and other International Stakeholders were attending it here in Mogadishu.

The Minister said that the conference will look into assessments regarding to national coordination mechanisms to achieve weapons and ammunition management in the country after lighting arms embargo in December, 2023

“The Federal Government of Somalia made more efforts to come to this stage of lifting arms embargo in our country after 30 years, challenges might come if we don’t maintain those efforts, therefore, this meeting will focus on continuing collaboration post-embargo era”, Qasim said.

Experts from International Partners including United Nations’ Mine Action, UK’s The Halo Trust, United States of America, Turkey and European Union participated the panel discussions, emphasizing the importance of such conference, challenges and opportunities of weapons management.

” Record-keeping, registering new and old weapons are all important and we see developing progresses made by the Somali Government, FMS and International Partners working together”, One of the experts, who requested to be named, told Mogadishu24 after the Panel discussion.

This was the first of its kind of National Weapons And Ammunition Management Meeting held in Mogadishu after lifting arms embargo last year and Government’s main challenge is to keeping record of the weapons as some of them enter into the country without marks to trace according to presentations explained during the meeting today.