Rights Activist Elected President of Ethiopian Somali StateBy Staff ReporterAugust 24, 2018 - The council of Ethiopian Somali People’s Democratic Party (ESPDP), in its extraordinary meeting on Thursday elected Mustafa Mohammed Omar as new president of the Somali regional state. Mustafa Mohammed Omar, who has been working as human rights activist and agricultural economist by profession replaced interim president Ahmed Abdi after the state’s long time serving president Abdi Mohamoud Omar a.ka Abdi Illey was detained by the government in Addis Ababa for sponsoring violence in the regional state. Abdi Illey and other senior officials have been accused of organizing, training, arming and deploying Somali youth to carry out killings, robberies and torching of religious institutions in the Jigjiga city and other towns of the Somali regional state. Unspecified numbers of people have been killed and thousands of people have been displaced by the attacks carried out in Somali state. Omar has worked for the United Nations’ Human Rights department mainly in the Horn of Africa region.

Source: Ethiopian News August 24, 2018 18:33 UTC