By Stephanie McCrummen
The Washington Post
MARKA, Somalia — Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf checked into a Nairobi hospital Tuesday complaining of difficulty breathing, according to Western diplomats in the region, who said his health problem is unlikely to trigger a new political crisis in this fragile Horn of Africa nation.
Yusuf, who is 72 and had a liver transplant in 1996, was expected to fly to London for medical treatment today, when he had been scheduled to meet Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, U.S. officials said.
His newly appointed prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein, will represent him in that meeting, the officials said. Rice will be in Addis Ababa for consultations with leaders from the region.
Yusuf's health scare came on a day when his government blocked at least 2,500 tons of U.N. food aid from being unloaded. No explanation was given, said Peter Smerdon, of U.N. World Food Program.
The food is intended for thousands who have fled to Marka and hundreds of thousands more Somalis who are facing one of the worst harvests in years.
Yusuf's weak transitional government has been battling a persistent insurgency in the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, since Ethiopian-backed government troops ousted a short-lived Islamic movement last December. The urban war has unleashed the worst humanitarian crisis this country has witnessed since its last central government fell in 1991.
Monitoring groups allege that Yusuf's government, Ethiopian troops and insurgents have committed widespread human-rights violations in the latest conflict.
The Washington Post
MARKA, Somalia — Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf checked into a Nairobi hospital Tuesday complaining of difficulty breathing, according to Western diplomats in the region, who said his health problem is unlikely to trigger a new political crisis in this fragile Horn of Africa nation.
Yusuf, who is 72 and had a liver transplant in 1996, was expected to fly to London for medical treatment today, when he had been scheduled to meet Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, U.S. officials said.
His newly appointed prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein, will represent him in that meeting, the officials said. Rice will be in Addis Ababa for consultations with leaders from the region.
Yusuf's health scare came on a day when his government blocked at least 2,500 tons of U.N. food aid from being unloaded. No explanation was given, said Peter Smerdon, of U.N. World Food Program.
The food is intended for thousands who have fled to Marka and hundreds of thousands more Somalis who are facing one of the worst harvests in years.
Yusuf's weak transitional government has been battling a persistent insurgency in the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, since Ethiopian-backed government troops ousted a short-lived Islamic movement last December. The urban war has unleashed the worst humanitarian crisis this country has witnessed since its last central government fell in 1991.
Monitoring groups allege that Yusuf's government, Ethiopian troops and insurgents have committed widespread human-rights violations in the latest conflict.
Source: Reuters
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