Somalia: the new president appoints a special envoy for the drought

One of the priorities of the new Somali head of state is to “urgently resolve the climate-related challenges of drought” (illustration image).

© AP Photo/Elias Meseret

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1 min

Somalia is still awaiting the appointment by the new head of state of a prime minister and a government.

Already, the entourage of the president has been appointed, as well as a head of the intelligence services.

And on Tuesday May 24, Hassan Cheikh Mohamoud, elected on May 15, entrusted a major mission to one of his rivals in the presidential election, within the framework of the “priorities” of the Head of State: “ 

urgently address the climate-related challenges of drought

 ,” the statement said.

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Abdirahman Abdishakur "Warsame" is a heavyweight in Somali politics.

Ten days ago, he was one of the unsuccessful presidential candidates.

And he is now, since Tuesday morning, the Special Envoy of the man who beat him, and of whom he was once a political adviser, with the mission of developing a response to the historic drought affecting the country.

Abdirahman Abdishakur is in his fifties.

From the height of his tall stature, he wears gray hair and black-rimmed glasses.

A member of the powerful Habr Gedir sub-clan, he is the president of the Wadajir party, founded in 2016 to run for the then presidential election.

He is a law graduate who, after a long stay in the United Kingdom, was also one of the negotiators of the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia, the movement resulting from the Islamic courts, signatory of the Djibouti agreement of 2008 which put an end to the fighting which tore the country apart.

But he was also one of the fiercest opponents of former President Mohamed Farmajo, to the point of being arrested and injured by the security services in 2017 during the attack on his residence.

Five of his bodyguards were then killed.

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To read also: Somalia: Hassan Cheikh Mohamoud takes over as head of state

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  • Somalia

  • Hassan Sheikh Mohamud