With our regional correspondent, Gaëlle Laleix
The President of the Southwest State, one of the seven member states of the Federal Republic of Somalia, resigned on March 30, 2026. Abdiaziz Laftagareen announced his resignation on Facebook. A few hours later, the federal Somali army entered Baidoa, the capital of the federal state, without any resistance.
According to the publication Africa Intelligence, neighboring Ethiopia and AMISOM, the United Nations peacekeeping mission, acted as mediators to negotiate the extraction of Abdiaziz Laftagreen, who was holed up at the airport. His destination remains unknown.
No reprisals promised by Mogadishu
The Somali Information Minister praised the peaceful resolution of the crisis and promised that there would be no reprisals against the Southwest State.
The president had recently stepped down in protest against a recent constitutional reform that changes the election process and extends the current president of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud‘s term by a year.
« What happened in Baidoa is not heroic, despairs Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed, former Prime Minister of Somalia. If the federal government deploys troops to solve a political conflict […], what protection is left for other federal states against the same fate? », he questions on X.
Somalia is deeply divided among its constituent states: the leaders of Jubaland (south) and Puntland (northeast) strongly oppose the centralization efforts of the Somali president. Mogadishu also claims control over Somaliland, which unilaterally separated from Somalia in 1991 after a bloody civil war.
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