An advance team for the first ever all-female contingent of police officers to UNAMID arrived in Khartoum from Namibia yesterday to begin preparations for their deployment to Darfur.

The 17 newly-arrived police officers are expected to be joined later this month by 13 others, all of whom will be conducting patrols in and around IDP camps and training local residents in community policing.

To date, UNAMID Police force has 2,937 police advisors, representing over 77% of authorized strength of 3,772 of these, 257 are women. They are a vital asset as a great number of the victims of the conflict are women, many of whom will only approach female officers for assistance.