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/ 3 February 2009
The deputy mayor of Somali capital Mogadishu has accused AU peacekeepers of opening fire on commuter buses, killing more than 20 civilians.
Somalia’s government has formally signed a peace deal with some opposition figures, United Nations officials said on Tuesday.
Hard-line Somali Islamist Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys said on Monday the exiled opposition would not negotiate with a rival faction.
Somalia’s opposition coalition on Saturday endorsed a truce with the government as part of efforts to end the nation’s 17 years of bloodshed.
Rare peace talks between Somalia’s interim government and opposition exiles have made a slow start in Djibouti, but a senior United Nations official said he was encouraged both sides had turned up. ”I am more than hopeful. The Somalis who I met today are committed to peace and reconciliation,” the UN envoy to Somalia told reporters in Djibouti late on Saturday.
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/ 5 December 2007
Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf spent a second day in hospital on Wednesday with a condition some sources called very serious but an envoy said was a routine check-up for an old liver transplant. In a tumultuous week for Somali politics, an exiled Islamist leader rejected a call by Somalia’s new prime minister for talks to try to end 16 years of conflict.
A key Somali Islamist leader on Tuesday called for jihad, or holy war, vowing that a bloody insurgency against the Ethiopian-backed government in Mogadishu would end only with the return of Islamic law. ”What we want is to free our country from Christian colonisers — by this I mean Ethiopia,” said Sheikh Mukhtar Robow.