MOGADISHU — Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed will not attend a conference in Rome on his beleaguered country, a senior government official told AFP Monday.
Sharif had been expected in Italy on Tuesday for a meeting of the International Contact Group on Somalia, but he opted to stay in Mogadishu where a month-old insurgent offensive aimed at toppling the government was yet to be decisively repelled.
"The Somali president, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, will not attend the conference by the International Contact Group on Somalia for important duties at home," the senior official said on condition of anonymity.
"The meeting will be attended by the prime minister (Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke) and several other ministers," he said.
"Our president is very much engaged in dealing with the current security situation created by anti-establishment forces that are opposed to peace."
On May 7, an insurgency spearheaded by the radical Shebab group and Sharif rival Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys’ Hezb al-Islamiya militia launched a major nationwide offensive to remove the president from power.
Sharif has been holed up in his Mogadishu compound and his forces, propped up by African Union peacekeepers, have only recently been able to recapture a few positions in the capital.
Some members of his entourage had warned that his absence from Mogadishu risked creating a window for Aweys and his allies to make a final push and seize the presidency.
More than 250 people, civilians and combatants, have been killed and around 100,000 displaced by the latest bout of fighting, according to witnesses, medical sources and aid groups.