The U.N. Security Council is due to discuss Somalia days after the country announced it was expelling a U.N. envoy who raised questions about the arrest of an extremist group defector-turned-political candidate.
Thursday’s meeting is a regularly scheduled discussion of the Horn of Africa nation, where the U.N. and the African Union have a joint peacekeeping force. But the discussion may get additional focus after Somalia ordered Nicholas Haysom to leave.
Haysom, who is expected to brief the council, questioned the legal basis of last month’s arrest of Mukhtar Robow. He was a deputy leader of the al-Shabab Islamic extremist group but defected in 2017.
When arrested, Robow was a leading candidate for a Somali regional presidency. The election was days later.
Somalia accused Haysom of diplomatic overreach.
