The African Union hosts this day a concertation meeting in Addis Abeba with the Arab League and 7 Eastern Africa countries, gathered within the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), to address the situation in Somalia with the recent implication of Ethiopia, and the risks pose to this sub-region’s stability.This meeting happens in a fragile and unstable context marked with the intensification of combats between the transitionnal Somalian Governement and islamist combatants from the Union of Islamic Tribunals already installed in Mogadiscio (capital of the country) and controlling 60% of the country. The military intervention of Ethiopia at the sides of the Federal Somali Government of transition marks a turning in the current Somali crisis and make fear an escalation of the conflict.
The meeting, convened by the African Union Commission Chairperson, Alpha Oumar Konaré, is organised after a UN Security Council meeting held on December 26, 2006, without reaching an agreement, and during which its members appeared divised on the question of an immediate cessassion of hostilities.
