Somalia’s new President Hassan Skeikh Mohamud has been sworn into office, just four days after two bombs hit a hotel housing the newly elected president.
"We want Somalia free from piracy, terrorism and asylum seekers abroad. We want to create a united community so that Somalis and the neighbouring countries can live peacefully," Reuters quoted Mohamud as saying on Sunday during his inauguration ceremony in a fortified hall in Mogadishu's police training camp.
"Somalia has now turned a fresh page.... I promise (that) my government will deliver a new democratic beginning,” he added.
Earlier on Wednesday, two bombs exploded outside the main entrance of the Jazeera hotel in Mogadishu where Somali’s president was meeting Kenya's foreign minister.
Al-Shabaab fighters have claimed responsibility for the attack.
Meanwhile, Somali parliament members cast their ballots in a second round presidential run-off on September 10, which pitted the 56-year-old university lecturer Hassan Sheikh Mohamud against former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
The weak Western-backed transitional government in Mogadishu has been battling al-Shabab fighters for the past five years and is propped up by a 12,000-strong African Union force from Uganda, Burundi, and Djibouti.
The African nation is one of the countries generating the highest number of refugees and internally displaced people in the world.
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