Former Somali PM dies in Ethiopia

Former Somali Prime minister Ali Khalif Galaydh has today died in Ethiopian Somali region, an official confirmed. He was 79.

In a Twitter post, Somali information ministry spokesperson Ismail Mukhtar said Galeyr passed away in Jigjiga town.

He did not specify the cause of Galaydh’s death.

An accomplished academic, Galeydh travelled to the United States as a young man to attend Boston University on a scholarship. He went on to earn a Master of Public Administration (M.P.A) from Syracuse University. He was a fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University in the 1980s.

He embarked on a career that saw him working at the Somali Institute of Public Administration (SIPA) and the Somali Institute of Development Administration and Management (SIDAM) from 196 to 1973.

Galaydh joined the public sector when he was appointed as a Member of Parliament in 1979. A year later, he was promoted to Minister of Industry by Siad Barre. He later fled Somalia in 1982 along with a group of ministers.

He returned to public office when he was named as Prime Minister following the Somalia National Peace Conference (SNPC) in Arta, Djibouti, in October 2000.

Ali Khalif Galaydh was in the Westgate Mall when Al-Shabaab militants infamously attacked it in 2013. He managed to escape through a fire escape.

More recently, he was selected as a federal Member of Parliament in 2012 and the leader of self-declared Khaatumo administration.