(SomaliNet) Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed on Friday made his first public appearance after three days in a Kenyan hospital in a bid to end speculation on the state of his health, AFP reports. Yusuf, who has battled ill-health for more than a decade, said he was feeling "very nice" and was recovering well from a bronchial infection that saw him hospitalised on Tuesday.
| "He's fine. We're fine here. Fine. Really. How are you?" |
He also said he had seen at least three press television reports suggesting he had already died. "Many of you know me. I am healthy," he reporters.
| "Never better. Wanna see me pump some iron?" |
Hospital sources have insisted Yusuf was in "serious condition" when he was admitted, but presidential aides and the country's envoy to Kenya have flatly dismissed the claim.
"We had an X-Ray, he had bronchitis. He has been put on treatment (and) he has responded very well and he will be able to travel soon to London for a scheduled check-up," said Mauro Saio, Yusuf's doctor.
| "It was the cheese blintz, we're sure of it." |
Yusuf, a thug former warlord before he was elected president in 2004, has seemed frail during recent public appearances, has lost weight and suffers from bouts of heavy shaking.
| Wonder if it was Yeltsin syndrome? |
He has had a liver transplant and his ill health has been a source of concern in Somali political circles and among his foreign supporters. "For the last 13 years I have had this liver, a transplanted liver, and it is healthy like your liver," said Yusuf.
"But my liver isn't healthy."
"Okay, it's healthy like his liver!" |
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