IGAD Delegation Reaches Kismayo

Kismayo May 18 2013 (SDN)– A visiting IGAD delegation led by IGAD’s secretary general Mohbub Moalin has reached today the capital of Jubaland state Kismayu after meeting with the Somali government yesterday in Mogadishu. During their stay in Kismayu the delegation will meet with the Jubbaland government as well as traditional elders.  The delegation will try to solve the recent power conflict is Kismayu. In its communique issued on May 3rd, The IGAD Heads of State decided to conduct a confidence-building mission to Kismayu led by the IGAD Executive Secretary and  composed of representatives  of  the  federal government of  Somalia and one  senior  delegate  from  each  member  state of IGAD with  the  aim  of  assessing  the  situation and  submitting a  report  to  the IGAD summit to be held on the  sidelines of the upcoming AU summit in May 2013.

In Jubaland, a “warlord” assumed presidency of the region on Wednesday. Ahmed Madobe was elected Jubaland’s “president” by a conference of about 500 elders and local leaders, but was challenged by Barre Hirale, a former Somali defence minister. Madobe is a key ally of Kenya, and his appointment risks opening a rift between Kenya and Somalia, according to AFP news agency. With tensions already high, the move raised the risk of clashes between rival factions in the southern port city of Kismayo, a former stronghold of the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab, where Kenyan troops in an African Union force are now based. Jubaland lies in the far south of Somalia and borders both Kenya and Ethiopia, and control is split between multiple forces including clan militia, the al-Shabab, Kenyan and Ethiopian soldiers. Jubaland joins other semi-autonomous regions of the fractured Horn of Africa nation, including Puntland in the northeast, which wants autonomy within a federation of states, and Somaliland in the northwest.

SDN Kismayu