Somalia

The Security Council today adopted a resolution reauthorizing the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) until 31 March 2022, ahead of a phased handover of responsibilities to Somalia’s security forces early next year.

[…] The security situation remained volatile, with a monthly average of 273 incidents recorded. Most incidents continued to be perpetrated by Al-Shabaab.

Eight people were killed and over a dozen injured in a car bombing near a school in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Thursday, police said, in the latest attack claimed by Al-Shabaab jihadists in the troubled country.

[…] The AU conducted an independent assessment of the mission’s future in May and presented four options in October: … As 2022 nears, talks continue with no sign of agreement on the horizon.

Although progress has been made in Somalia’s electoral process, it has been slow and uneven, the UN Special Representative for the country said in a briefing to the Security Council on Wednesday.

The UN mandate for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) will expire on 31 December 2021. Fatigued financial donors want reforms and perhaps cuts, while the AU and troop-contributing states seek reliable funding. Somalia’s government relies on the mission but is nonetheless ambivalent about the need to maintain it.

A 15-member team of the African Union Peace and Security Council met with senior Somali officials in Mogadishu on Tuesday and discussed the future of AMISOM peacekeeping operations. Tensions are running high after the Somali government expelled an AU deputy special envoy last week.

United Nations officials say more than 100,000 people are displaced in central Somalia following days of fighting between the government forces and a group opposing the region's local administration.

Somalia's president and prime minister say they have struck a deal to speed up the process for long-delayed elections, ending their simmering feud which threatened to plunge the Horn of Africa nation into fresh crisis.

Somalia has rejected a proposal by the African Union to turn its peacekeeping force in Mogadishu into a hybrid mission, in what could set the stage for a battle for attention at the United Nations Security Council.