07/10/08 (B468) APA / L’Ethiopie a « démissionné » le Président d’une région somalienne. Son rempaçant n’a pas été désigné. Ethiopia sacks head of Somali regional state (En Anglais – Info lecteur)

Ethiopia has sacked the president of the Somali regional state, which is one of the country’s nine regional states bordering Somalia, APA learns here Sunday.

Abdulahi Hassen was fired by the regional governing party (Somali People’s Democratic Party) after it held an evaluation forum on regional good governance and development activities.

The sacking of the president comes on the heels of the recent explosion in the regional state capital of Jijiga where four people were killed while another ten sustained serious injuries.

According to Ethiopian state television, the regional president was fired from his post for failing to undertake what the people of the region needed in terms of good governance, development and fighting insurgents in the region.

President Hassen himself was injured in an explosion two years ago by insurgents, which the government claims to have been carried out by the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF).

Since the ONLF killed 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese oil workers last year April, the government has undertaken a crack down against the movement, which claims to be fighting for the secession of the Somali region of Ethiopia.

The Somali region, one of the nine regional states of Ethiopia, is inhabited mainly by ethnic Somalis, which is also bordering Somalia.

The regional president was on his post for the past four years, so far no one has been appointed