Turkish Trains 30 Paramilitary on Public Order Management

Gambian police have concluded a two weeks training with three Turkish instructors on public order management on Friday.

The 30 paramilitary officials who benefited from the training were handed their certificates at the paramilitary headquarters at Westfield.

This is the second batch of training instructors from the Turkish police have had with Gambian police in four weeks. The instructors are Haydar Goktepe, Sefa Korkusuz and Malih Uygur.

The first team of Turkish instructors who held training on communications skills have left the country last week.

The two weeks course on public order management was part of series of trainings organized by Turkish police with Gambian police since 2018.

The trainings, according to officials, were meant to prepare Gambian police in several areas including crowd control, VIP protection, statement taking, among others, ahead of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation summit due to be held in Gambia in 2019.

Yankuba Sonko, a special adviser at Gambia’s Interior Ministry, said Turkey has been helping country’s security forces in capacity building issues for over two decades now.

“Public order management in a democratic society is a very difficult task especially in this trying times of our young democracy,” said Sonko.

Omar Sey, the spokesperson of the OIC secretariat in Gambia, hailed Turkey for the support it is rendering towards Gambia’s preparation for the hosting of the OIC.

Ismail Sefa Yuceer, the Turkish ambassador to the Gambia, has described as beneficial the partnership between the Turkish and Gambian police.

“What distinguished Turkish police from many is the variety of challenges they face… All the various units of the Turkish police are prepared to respond to all these various challenges…,” said Ambassador Yuceer.