Warlord returns keys to UN

2005-09-13 13:54

Nairobi - A warlord has surrendered the keys to Unicef offices in southern Somalia that he took over two days ago, a United Nations spokesperson said on Tuesday.

The takeover by the warlord controlling southern Somalia's Middle Shabelle region had raised questions about whether Somalia's President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi could establish authority in Jowhar. Yusuf and Gedi have set up their government in Jowhar because they say the traditional capital of Mogadishu, 90km southwest, is unsafe.

Warlord Mohamed Dheere walked into the UN children agency's Jowhar offices on Sunday and told staff to hand over the keys, Christian Balslev-Olesen, the head of Unicef's Somalia office, said on Monday in Nairobi.

The World Health Organisation (WHO), UN development programme and office for humanitarian co-ordination share offices with Unicef in Jowhar.

Unrest in Somalia

Sandra Macharia of the UN development programme said in a statement on Tuesday that Dheere had returned the keys.

In an interview with a local radio station in Somalia on Monday, Dheere said his militia took over the offices to guard equipment there after the UN moved its international staff out of Jowhar on Thursday.

There has been no effective central government in Somalia since clan-based warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Warlords then turned on each other, plunging the country of seven million into chaos.

The transitional government led by Yusuf and Gedi, formed after lengthy peace talks in Kenya last year, raised some hope. But its members quickly split over where the government should be based and whether it needs peacekeepers from neighbouring countries to help establish order.

While Yusuf and Gedi are in Jowhar, parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden and other members of the government are in Mogadishu.

- AP