The United Nations Security Council is due to vote today, to remove restrictions on Somalia’s weapons deliveries and its security forces.
This move is coming after over 30 years of an arms embargo being imposed on the country.
The council put the interdiction on Somalia in 1992 to sever the flow of weapons to clashing warlords. These warriors had deposed dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and subjected the Horn of Africa nation to civil war.
According to diplomat reports, the 15-member group is all set to espouse two British-drafted resolutions today.
One would be to remove the full arms ban on Somalia and another to reimpose the ban on Al Shabaab militants.
One draft resolutions had made clear “there is no arms embargo on the Government of the Federal Republic of Somalia.”
It had also conveyed concerns about the amount of safe ammunition storage facilities in Somalia.
Further encouraging the erection, renovation and use of safe ammunition depots across Somalia.
It had also encouraged other countries to help.
Al Shabaab has kept its prosecution of the Somali government since 2006 so as to institute its own stringent rule. This rule is of course, fully based on a meticulous interpretation of the Islamic Sharia law.
The Somali government has since appealed for the arms embargo to be lifted. This was so it could reinforce its forces and enable them to take on the militants.
The United Nations Security Council had started partially lifting those measures in 2013.
