Somali minister resigns over violence in Baidoa

Somalia’s Minister of Public Labour and Housing Abdel-Fattah Ibrahim yesterday resigned following the eruption of violence after the detention of a prominent local sheikh in the city of Baidoa, in the southwest of the country, the Anadolu Agency reported.

In a press conference held in Mogadishu, Ibrahim said that he decided to resign over the “flagrant interference” by the Somali government in the affairs of the Southern Governorate.

“The Somali government did not comment on the political incidents or the riots in Baidoa which erupted on Thursday as a result of polices which are practiced by the government and which add pressure on to the region,” he said.

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He said that the detention of Sheikh Mukhtar Rabo and cancelling his name from the nominees for the local elections in the governorate was a measure that did not keep up with the traditions of the country.

Eight Somalis have been killed and ten wounded since the outbreak of violence in the Baidoa as the people protest against the detention of the sheikh who is the former second in command of Al-Shabab.

Ethiopian forces, part of the African Union Mission in the country, arrested Rabo on Thursday and he was moved to Mogadishu.

The Somali Ministry of National Security said that he was detained because he did not give up the ideology of Al-Shabab Movement and he did not condemn the terror acts carried out against the government, he also did not announce his support for the Federal Somali Government.

Rabo had handed himself in to the Somali government in August 2017.

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