ENA

Addis Ababa-Ethiopia will deploy 30 police officers to South Sudan and Abyie region at the end of this month to support the peace keeping mission in the area, the Federal Police Commission announced.

Some 25 of the total police officers will be deployed to South Sudan, while the remaining five officers will be deployed to Abiye region under the UN umbrella, Commander Aster Andualem, Head of Foreign Training and Peacekeeping with the Commission told ENA.

According to the Commander, additional five officers are expected to be deployed to Darfur.The officers will provide training to the local police officers alongside with the peacekeeping mission.The Commission has provided pre-mission training, necessary for officers to be engaged in international missions locally, she added.

Previously, police officers who joined international peacekeeping missions had been receiving pre-missiontrainings in Kenya. Ethiopia has started to provide those trainings locally at the Ethiopian Police Collage.Ethiopia, a leading country in Africa in involving in international peacekeeping missions has been deploying police officers to various areas over the past 16 years.

A total of 74 police officers have been deployed to various areas so far. Currently, 29 police officers are discharging their responsibility in South Sudan, Abyie and Darfur areas.