Wednesday, December 05, 2007
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed's health is "definitely okay" and he is only travelling to Europe for a checkup, Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein said Wednesday.
Hussein, speaking to reporters during talks in the Ethiopian capital with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, denied reports that Yusuf's condition was serious.
"We were together yesterday travelling from Baidoa to Nairobi and this evening he will proceed to Europe. His health is definitely okay," he said.
When asked if the president was going to a hospital in Europe, he said: "No, checkup."
A medical source told AFP Yusuf remained in "serious condition" in a Nairobi hospital.
An official, who asked not to be named, said the president would travel to Europe "soon."
Yusuf has seemed frail during recent public appearances, has lost weight and suffers from bouts of heavy shaking.
He has had a liver transplant and his ill health has been a source of concern in Somali political circles and among his foreign supporters.
The concerns have cast doubt over the future of a country already beset by a protracted political stalemate, one of the world's worst humanitarian crisis and daily fighting between insurgents and Ethiopian-backed government forces.
Source: AFP, Dec 05, 2007