MOGADISHU, June 19 (Xinhua) -- The AU Somalia Mission (AMISOM) on Thursday announced that its chief, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, will leave early next month.
AMISOM did not say if the move was a routine transfer of leadership at the helm of the mission but said that Annadif's deputy, Lydia Wanyoto Mutende, "will head the AU Mission in Somalia until the appointment of a replacement".
"Ambassador Mahamat Saleh Annadif will be leaving the mission on July 2nd, 2014," AMISOM said in a statement.
On Wednesday Annadif held separate meeting with Somalia's top leaders to formally introduce Mutende and the newly appointed AMISOM Police Commissioner, Anand Pillay, "as part of the handover process", the statement added.
Annadif, a Chadian national, had headed the AU Somalia Mission since 2012. He held various ministerial portfolios in his home country before joining the AU in 2006.
Mandated by the UN, AMISOM's 22,000-strong troops are contributed by Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sierra Leone, and are deployed in southern and central Somalia.
