Somalia gets stamp of approval

2003-06-12 11:04

Mombasa - The inhabitants of Somalia will once again be able to correspond by mail with the rest of the world as the war-wracked country has rejoined the Pan African Postal Union, officials said on Thursday at a gathering of the body.

The Postal Union welcomed a delegation Somalia's Transitional National Government to its 22nd Administration Council meeting, which opened on Wednesday in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa.

"We congratulate them in their reconstruction efforts and active return to our common union," Papu secretary-general Ben Jilani Haddada said.

"The decision to return Somalia to the fold has been borne by the fact that after so many years of ordeals and havoc in all economic sectors, Somalia is now enjoying a return to peace," he said.

Conference officials said delegates would discuss efforts to catch up with postal trends outside the continent, including ways of combating terrorism involving the postal system, such as the sending of bombs by mail.

Somalia was forced out of the postal union, a specialised agency of the African Union, in 1991 after the outbreak of civil war.

The Papu, set up in 1977, has its headquarters in the Tanzanian city of Arusha.

- AFX