Kenya’s Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka has disclosed that the final phase of Somali peace talks will be launched on May 6 in Nairobi. The talks, aimed at forming a central government for the war-torn country, began on Oct. 27, 2002.

An East African body, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), has been mediating the talks. Musyoka, who heads the mediators from IGAD, has urged Somali delegates to iron out outstanding issues by the end of April.

“I have dispatched letters of invitation to my colleagues and members of the IGAD ministerial facilitation committee to attend a meeting to be held here in Nairobi on May 6, 2004. During this meeting we will witness the formal launch of the final and third phase of the Somali National Reconciliation Conference,” Musyoka said in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by Arab News.

Many Somali warlords have walked out of the talks, complaining the talks are fruitless and the mediators are not neutral. Musyoka said the first and the second phases of the talks have been successfully concluded in spite of financial, logistical and other constraints.

“This phase of the conference will have 203 delegates. These delegates will comprise political leaders, genuine traditional leaders and constituent politicians,” he said.

Musyoka also said the distribution of seats within the clans should start on May 13.

“The selection of members of Parliament will follow immediately and will start on May 22 and end on June 5. Selected members of Parliament will be sworn in on June 7. The speaker of the Transitional Federal Assembly and his or her deputies will be elected on June 9 and 10. The speaker and his or her deputies shall oversee the election of the President of the Republic, which will take place between June 14 and 17. The swearing in ceremony will take place on June 19 and the new government will be inaugurated here in Nairobi on July 1,” he said.

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Fishermen off of Somalia’s northeastern coast have recovered the bodies of more than 20 people believed to have drowned when the boat carrying them illegally to Yemen capsized, officials said in Mogadishu yesterday.

More than 80 illegal immigrants were on the boat when it capsized 50 kilometers off the coast of Bossaso, the main town in Somalia’s Puntland region, said Abdi Shakur Mire Adan, the regional information minister. Fishermen have recovered more than 20 bodies since Monday, he said, not sure when the boat sank.

The immigrants’ final destination was believed to be Saudi Arabia, where thousands of Africans find menial work. More than 2,000 would-be immigrants have drowned in the Gulf of Aden or the Red Sea in the past five years while making the crossing in poorly built, overloaded boats, human rights groups say.

Thousands more immigrants continue to wait in Bossaso to board similar ships, which also carry people as far north as Italy.