Twenty-five battalion commanders, political commissars and intelligence officers from the Third Division of the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) will take part in a course on international humanitarian law from 16 to 18 November in Mbale. The Third Division operates in the Karamoja region in north-eastern Uganda, an area that has witnessed increasing violence in the recent past.

This course is part of a training programme being organized by the ICRC together with the UPDF. A similar event took place in Lira in July for UPDF personnel belonging to the Fourth and Fifth Divisions.

An ICRC military expert, and a UPDF instructor trained by the ICRC in international humanitarian law (or the law of armed conflict), will conduct the course. "The programme includes lectures on behaviour during military action and on the treatment of civilians and persons no longer engaged in actual fighting," said Michel Meyer, head of the ICRC delegation in Kampala. "It will also address the principles of proportionality and distinction, with regard to military necessity, when choosing targets."

The ICRC is responsible for promoting international humanitarian law throughout the world. It endeavours to make the basic principles of the law known to all those who bear weapons. In Uganda as elsewhere, the ICRC carries out its humanitarian activities in an impartial, independent and neutral manner.