08/02/07 (B381) BBC : Le Premier ministre rétrograde son adjoint. Somalia’s PM demotes his deputy. (Info lectrice)

Somalia’s
deputy PM and ex-warlord, Hussein Aideed, has been demoted from internal affairs
to the housing ministry in a cabinet reshuffle.

A BBC
correspondent says it is part of the prime minister’s efforts to exert his
authority since the government routed the Islamists from Mogadishu.

Five people
have been killed in the capital by gunmen in the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Uganda’s parliament is expected to approve the deployment of 1,500
troops for a Somali peace force.

‘Inefficiency’

The BBC’s
Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says two people were killed on Wednesday
morning by unknown assailants at the south of the city near the main telecommunications
centre.

Three
other people were killed in separate attacks on Tuesday night.

Leaflets
warning residents not to co-operate with the government have been in circulation
in Mogadishu, and the attacks could be linked to them, says our correspondent.

As Prime
Minister Ali Mohamed Ghedi announced his reshuffle, he accused some ministers
of misuse of funds and inefficiency.

In Uganda,
the parliament is voting to allow the deployment of 1,500 soldiers to Somalia
as part of the African Union (AU) peace mission.

The AU
has struggled to raise 8,000 troops its wants to send to Somalia to replace
Ethiopian soldiers who have started to withdraw.

In December,
Ethiopia helped oust the Union of Islamic Courts, who ruled much of Somalia
for the previous six months, and install the government in Mogadishu.

So far
Nigeria, Ghana and Burundi are the other countries which have offered troops
for the AU mission.

Cholera
outbreak

Meanwhile,
at least 115 people have died in the past four weeks following an outbreak
of cholera in south and central Somalia, Medecins Sans Frontieres Spain has
confirmed.

Dr Abdulahi
Husein Maalin, who works at a hospital in Jowhar, 90km north of Mogadishu,
said the outbreak was the result of recent floods which had contaminated water
wells.

The floods
displaced tens of thousands of people in the region, leaving large tracts
of farmland submerged.

"We
have started chlorinating the wells in all the districts but, unfortunately,
we are having difficulty in accessing some of the remote villages due to lack
of transport," Dr Maalin said.

"Two-thirds
of those affected are children under the age of 10," he said.