The Somali Parliament has postponed on Monday the joint session scheduled during the day after the attack perpetrated on Sunday by the terrorist group Al Shabaab against a hotel near the Presidential Palace, which is still active because several assailants remain barricaded inside.
The session was scheduled for Monday to discuss the 2023 Budget, but the reasons for the postponement have not been revealed, although the attack on the Vila Rose hotel seems the most likely cause, according to Somali Radio Shabelle. The Council of Ministers last week approved the Budget for next year and sent the agreement to Parliament, which must still give it the ‘green light’.
Local media have so far confirmed at least five dead in the attack, while Mohamed Dahir, an officer of the Somali Police, has raised to ten the number of dead in a statement given to the German news agency DPA.
For their part, official sources quoted by the British television channel BBC have indicated that the assault is close to ending, although the fighting in the hotel has not yet ended. The government has not yet given an official death toll.
Somalia has increased in recent months the offensives against Al Shabaab with the support of clans and local militias as part of a series of decisions taken by the president, Hassan Shaykh Mohamud, who promised to put the fight against terrorism at the center of his efforts to stabilize the African country.
