SOMALIA: SECURITY COUNCIL SPEAKS OUT AGAINST RECENT SUICIDE BOMBING

The Security Council today strongly condemned the suicide car-bomb attack in Somalia that killed the national security minister, Omar Hashi Aden, and a number of innocent civilians on 18 June.

The blast at a hotel in Beledweyne, north of the capital, Mogadishu, reportedly killed 35 people.

In a press statement read out by Ambassador Baki Ilkin of Turkey, which holds the rotating Council presidency for June, the 15-member body offered "their sincere condolences to the families of those murdered or injured in the attack, as well as to the Government and the people of Somalia."

The Council reiterated its support for the Transitional Federal Government, its efforts to achieve peace, security and reconciliation in Somalia through the UN-facilitated Djibouti process, which aided the formation of the new government in February, as well as the creation of a newly-expanded Parliament and election of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

The body also expressed its continued backing for the work of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in its statement, while condemning the recent flare up of deadly violence in the Horn of Africa country.
________________