MOGADISHU, Jan 18 (Reuters): A top UN envoy flew to Somalia's capital on Thursday to discuss deploying African peacekeepers in order to avoid a security vacuum after the defeat of Islamist fighters over the New Year.
It was the first visit by a senior UN representative since thousands of Ethiopian and Somali government troops last month ousted the Islamists who had run southern Somalia for six months.
Ethiopia is eager to pull out its troops as soon as possible but there are fears of a return to anarchy in the failed state unless they are swiftly replaced by African peacekeepers.
Francois Lonseny Fall, special representative of the UN secretary-general, flew into Mogadishu from Nairobi and sped to talks with Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, escorted by a heavily armed convoy of gunmen in pickup trucks.
Yusuf came to Mogadishu last week for the first time since taking office in 2004.
Until the Christmas war the weak interim government was confined to the southern town of Baidoa and in danger of being overrun until Ethiopia intervened.
"The government was in Baidoa, now it is in Mogadishu.
We need to protect them and also facilitate the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops.
This is what everyone expects," Fall told reporters after meeting Yusuf in the whitewashed Villa Somalia.
He told Yusuf: "I want to congratulate you.
To see the president in Villa Somalia is a very important step.
We have to move step by step and we need all efforts to get this country rebuilt." The bullet and shell-marked villa was the seat of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre before his overthrow in 1991 plunged the country into 15 years of anarchy and bloodshed.
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