The United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution extending until the end of next year its arms embargo on Somalia.
In the new adopted resolution, the Security Council renewed the imposed arms embargo which will run to 15 November 2016, and also extended the mandate of the panel of experts tasked with monitoring compliance until 15 December 2016.
The Security Council imposed the embargo on Somalia in 1992 to cut the flow of weapons to feuding warlords, who a year earlier had ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and plunged the country into civil war.
But in 2013, the 15-member council agreed to partially lift the arms embargo on Somalia, allowing the government in Mogadishu to buy light weapons to strengthen its security forces to fight Islamist groups.
However, a confidential U.N. monitors’ report warned of “systematic abuses” by Somalia’s government – which the monitors say has allowed the diversion of weapons that Somali authorities purchased after the Security Council eased the arms embargo.
Reaffirming Somalia’s sovereignty over its natural resources, the Council underlined the vital importance of the Federal Government of Somalia putting in place a resource-sharing agreement to ensure that the national petroleum sector did not become a source of increased tension. The Council condemned the ongoing export of charcoal from Somalia in violation of the total ban on charcoal exports.
Horseed Media
UN extends Somalia arms embargo
Published: October 24, 2015
