A senior UN official has been declared “persona non grata” (unwelcome) by Somaliland.
Somaliland’s parliament banned David Stephen, the UN Secretary-General’s special representative for Somalia, because he was accused of misrepresenting the truth about Somaliland and Somalia’s political situation.
The UN stated they were not contacted directly by Somaliland and reaffirmed their commitment to the unity and territorial integrity of Somalia.
This action followed online attacks against UN officials by Somaliland supporters.
Read the full article published by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:
Senior UN Official Unwanted In Somaliland
The UN Secretary-General’s special representative for Somalia, David Stephen, has been declared “persona non grata” by the Republic of Somaliland.
The parliament of Somaliland declared the UN envoy banned on Saturday, 20 January, according to local Radio Hargeysa, the BBC, and international news agency reports.
He was accused of “misrepresenting the truth in Somaliland and the political realities in Somalia”, Radio Hargeysa said, in a report monitored in Somalia by Agence France Presse (AFP).
A United Nations spokesperson in Nairobi told IRIN that the Somaliland administration had not contacted the United Nations and it was established UN policy not to react to press reports.
The spokesperson said the UN “deplored attempts to personalize serious political issues”.
Regarding the status of the territory – which has received no official recognition since declaring unilateral independence in 1991 – the spokesperson said the position of the UN was clear: “The commitment to the unity and territorial integrity of Somalia was reaffirmed by the Security Council in its Presidential Statement dated 11 January.”
One regional analyst told IRIN that Somaliland supporters in the diaspora had used the internet in recent weeks to attack senior UN officials, including Stephen, and that the move “came as no surprise”.
