Four more ministers quit Somalia’s government

BAIDOA, Somalia (Reuters) – Four more ministers resigned on
Tuesday from Somalia’s interim government, plunging the fragile
administration into further crisis after 18 top government
officials quit last week.

“This is our decision because this cabinet has failed the
reason for which it was established. It has failed to reconcile
the Somali people,” said Sayeed Hassan Shire, an assistant
minister who resigned.

Shire along with the minister of minerals and water Mohamud
Salad Nur and two other assistant ministers announced their
resignation in Baidoa, the provincial seat of President
Abdullahi Yusuf’s interim government.

The resignations are the latest to rock the government
after 18 ministers and assistant ministers quit last Thursday
in what they said was a move to facilitate peace talks with
rival Islamists who now control the capital Mogadishu and large
swathes of southern Somalia.

The government had received a boost over the weekend when
parliament failed to support a no confidence vote against Prime
Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi.