The armed forces supporting the opposition in Somalia began to withdraw from capital Mogadishu to their barracks or posts elsewhere in the country on Friday, ending a tense standoff with pro-government troops after a dispute over delayed elections, reported Reuters.
“We agreed to go back to our barracks after the prime minister ordered us yesterday. So these forces are the ones who were fighting in the north of Mogadishu and the other forces are coming out and they are ready,” Major Diini Ahmed, spokesman for the opposition-allied troops, told Reuters.
He said the troops will soon began returning to barracks.
The agreement reached between the rival sides to end the standoff calls for returning of opposition-allied forces to barracks within 48 hours, the soldiers becoming apolitical, and a promise that those soldiers supporting the opposition do not get penalized.
Somalian Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble said as part of the agreement signed on Wednesday he had supervised the removal of barricades and reopening of the streets.
“May our capital enjoy peace, security, stability and prosperity,” he wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
Mogadishu had been witnessing political insecurities since February when President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed‘s term ended before elections were held. Under a deal reached between the government and Somalia’s five regional states, indirect elections in Somalia were supposed to have been held by February this year. But that agreement collapsed as the president and the leaders of two states, Puntland and Jubaland, could not agree upon the terms.
Later on, a resolution passed in April that extended the president’s mandate by two years split the country’s fragile security forces. Soldiers loyal to influential opposition leaders poured into the capital in late April and occupied strongholds in Mogadishu. The political crisis soon turned deadly with clashes erupting between rival factions of the security forces.
