Rwanda will, this week, host an African Union conference on peace keeping in Somalia.

The three-day conference (July 6 – 8), aims at examining the implementation of International Humanitarian Law by African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

AMISOM is an active regional peacekeeping mission to the war torn Somalia operated by the African Union with the approval of the UN.

It was created by the African Union's Peace and Security Council on 19th January 2007 with an initial six month mandate.

It replaced and subsumed the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Peace Support Mission to Somalia (IGASOM).

Speaking to The New Times yesterday the Director for Europe, Americas and international organizations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ben Rutsinga, said that Rwanda was chosen to host the conference because of the successful peace keeping operations in various countries.

"Rwanda will have an opportunity to share its own experiences,” said Rutsinga.

Rwanda is lately involved in various peace keeping missions in countries like Sudan, Haiti, Liberia and others.

According to a press release from the ministry, the conference will seek to enhance the understanding of AMISOM mandate and tasks by the participating actors and stakeholders.

"This will enable greater appreciation of the context in which the mandate is being implemented and challenges arising thereof,” reads the release in part.

It further says that the conference will also underline the African Union and AMISOM efforts at enhancing the respect of International Humanitarian Law in Somalia among other issues.

The conference is expected to contribute to the improvement of the visibility of Rwanda’s successes in UN/AU peace keeping missions at continental and global level.

Expected participants in this conference include the United Nations Special Representative, the African Union special representative and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) facilitator.

Others will include Somalia Transitional Federal government (TGF), Government of Burundi, Government of Uganda, International and local Human Rights organisations among others.

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