Comoros

The chairman of the African Union Commission blamed the leaders of a renegade island in the Comoros on Friday for stoking a crisis that has prompted the government to prepare an invasion. Mohamed Bacar, the self-declared president of Anjouan island, has defied the AU and the national authorities in the coup-prone Indian Ocean archipelago since he won an illegal election last June.

The prospects for a peaceful resolution to the deepening political impasse between Anjouan, one of three semi-autonomous islands that make up the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros, and the Union government, are becoming ever less likely.
Individual island elections in June reignited hostility between Anjouan and the other two islands in the group, Grande Comore and Moheli. Anjouan forces had killed two national soldiers trying to enforce a constitutional court decision ordering Mohame...read more

The Peace and Security Council of the African Union, at its 82nd meeting held on 23 July 2007, was briefed by the Commission, supplemented by the representative of South Africa, the country coordinating the regional efforts on the Comoros, on the outcome of the Meeting of the Ministerial Committee of the Countries of the Region on the Comoros, held in Pretoria, South Africa, on 8 and 9 July 2007, and on the subsequent developments in the Comoros.

The successful second round of presidential elections on two of the three islands in the Union of Comoros has been overshadowed by the continuing political crisis on the third island, Anjouan. The elections on Sunday 24 June on the islands of Grand Comore and Moheli went "very, very smoothly", the UN Resident Coordinator in the Comoros, Opia Mensah Kumah, told IRIN.

The Comorian island of Anjouan has held elections for its presidency, defying a national one-week delay and putting fresh strain on the archipelago's national union, according to a Al-Jazeera report. The government had ordered the delay over security fears after police shot three people during protests on Tuesday against the national president, Ahmed Abdullah Mohamed Sambi.

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