UN Envoy Visits Mogadishu

UN envoy to Somalia Francois Fall arrived in Mogadishu on Friday for his first visit since the end, two weeks ago, of some of the deadliest fighting in the city’s history.

Fall was due to meet Somali President Abdillahi Yusuf Ahmed, Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi and to visit Ugandan troops from an African Union peacekeeping mission.

"It’s a very political mission, there are a lot of problems we will raise with the president: security, human rights, dialogue with the (dominant) Hawiye clan, the cessation of hostilities," said Fall.

The UN envoy said he would also discuss in detail a

twice-postponed reconciliation conference due to take place June 16, subject to availability of international funding.

The capital’s new mayor, former warlord Mohamed Omar Habeb, and the health minister, Kamar Salad, met the UN envoy at Mogadishu airport.

Fall was due in the northern semi-autonomous region of Puntland on Friday evening to discuss its border dispute with the neighboring breakaway region of Somaliland, where he is due to end his visit on Sunday.

Somalia ’s two-year-old interim government is struggling to control Mogadishu following its rout of Islamist forces with the help of Ethiopian troops at the start of the year.

A deadly Islamist-led insurgency in the city only abated at the end of last month after street battles that claimed hundreds of lives and displaced up to 400,000 civilians.

Source: Sapa-AFP

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