Mogadishu (Diplomat.so) - Somali National Army forces seized the monument of the Unknown Soldier in the Bondhere district and the outskirts of Aden Abdulle International Airport in the capital, Mogadishu, following demonstrations against the outgoing president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed "Farmaajo".
The leaders of the opposition planned the big demonstration with their loyalists and their supporters to mobilize the crowd this morning at the KM 4 intersection in Mogadishu and the Unknown Soldier Square, but the army imposed its control on all the points that were expected to start the demonstration.
This morning, dozens of people protested near Mogadishu airport, but the army prevented and frustrated them from moving, according to eyewitnesses, and soldiers fired light weapons and machine guns at the protesters and their opposition leaders, including former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire, former Planning Minister Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, and two members of Parliament Abdurahman Odowaa and Mahad Salad.
The sources mentioned that the attempts to begin the demonstration from northeast Mogadishu were foiled as a result of the siege of the Maida Hotel, which houses the two former Somali presidents , Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
This dangerous security and political development comes at a time when President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo's four-year constitutional legitimacy ended on February 8, and the fate of the Somali parliamentary and presidential elections is not yet known.
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