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Somali
premier calls for U.N. troops without delay
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 ADDIS
ABEBA(July 8,2008)
- The international community must deploy U.N. peacekeepers
in Somalia without delay or risk worsening insecurity in the Horn
of Africa, the country's prime minister warned on Monday during a
visit to Ethiopia.
Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein said the U.N. troops were needed
to replace Ethiopian forces under the terms of a peace deal reached
last month at U.N.-led talks in Djibouti.
"The U.N. and international community must provide financial
support and deploy peacekeepers without delay so that Ethiopian forces
would withdraw in accordance with the agreement."
Hussein was speaking at a news conference in the capital Addis Ababa
following a three-day trip to Ethiopia.
The June 9 deal agreed in Djibouti between his interim government
and some opposition figures called for the rapid deployment of a robust
U.N. stabilisation force for Somalia.
The deal said that Ethiopian forces should leave Somali soil within
120 days, but that their withdrawal was conditional on "sufficient"
U.N. troops being deployed before that.
Islamist insurgents inside Somalia and opposition hardliners have
criticised the deal, which has had little impact on the ground. The
country has had no central rule and has been in near-perpetual conflict
since the 1991 toppling of a dictator.
Late on Sunday, unknown gunmen in Mogadishu assassinated the Somali
head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Unknown assailants shot dead the Somali head of the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) late on Sunday as he was on his way home
from saying evening prayers in the chaotic capital Mogadishu, witnesses
said.
Osman Ali Ahmed, head of the UNDP office in Mogadishu, was shot six
times in the head, ribs and stomach from close range by men armed
with pistols. His younger brother was fatally wounded.
"He was already dead on arrival," an official at the Ugandan
soldier's medical facility in Mogadishu told Reuters, declining to
be named. "His bed and his body was covered with blood. He died
of loss of blood."
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