UN envoy welcomes appointment of new Somali Prime Minister

The top United Nations envoy to Somalia today welcomed the appointment of a new Prime Minister in the war-wracked African nation.

Yesterday, Mohamed A. Mohamed was named to the position by Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke stepped down as Prime Minister last month, in what Augustine P. Mahiga, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for Somalia, called at the time “yet another manifestation of the serious disputes within the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs).”

Today, Dr. Mahiga stressed in a statement that “time will not allow for any further crises within the leadership of Somalia.”

He noted that the international community expects a new Government to be appointed soon to focus on tasks critical to wrapping up the transitional period, which ends next August.

The UN and Somalia’s international partners are ready to support the new Government under Mr. Mohamed’s leadership, the envoy said.

The country – which has not had a functioning central government since 1991 and has been torn apart by decades of conflict and factional strife, more recently with al-Shabaab Islamic militants – is also facing a dire humanitarian crisis in which 3.2 million people, more than 40 per cent of the population, is in need of aid.

Last month, a mini-summit on Somalia held at UN Headquarters called on the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to end its differences and deliver basic services. In addition, it urged the international community to do much more to support efforts to bring peace to the strife-torn country, including by providing increased financial support for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and the development of the Somali security forces.