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United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has named a four-man panel of experts to monitor the arms embargo against Somalia, UN News reported on Monday.
The re-establishment of the monitoring group follows reports that various armed Somali factions were still receiving weapons from various sources.
In a letter to the UN Security Council’s president, released on Monday, Annan re-appointed an American, Melvin Holt Jr, and a Colombian, Joel Salek, both of whom had served on the last Somali monitoring group.
Also on the team will be Harjit Singh Kelley of Kenya, who previously served on an expert panel on Liberian sanctions, and Bruno Schiemsky of Belgium, who served on a group monitoring an embargo against the Democratic Republic of Congo.
On 15 March, the Council requested that the secretary-general re-establish "within 30 days and for a period of six months" a monitoring group "to continue investigating the implementation of the arms embargo by member states and violations, inter alia, through field-based investigations in Somalia."
It asked the group to assess actions taken so far by the Somali authorities and other UN members states, especially Somalia's neighbours, "fully to implement the arms embargo".
The Council imposed a weapons ban on Somalia in 1992, at the onset of civil war. A four-member panel of experts to investigate violations of the embargo was then appointed by Annan in September 2002.
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