Somalia elected to 15-member UN Security Council

The United Nations General Assembly elected Somalia and five other countries on Thursday as non-permanent members of the UN Security Council for two-year terms.

In one round of voting, the Assembly elected Somalia and Pakistan for each of the two seats open for African and Asia-Pacific States, while Panama received winning votes to represent the Latin American and the Caribbean States.

Further, Greece and Denmark were elected to occupy two seats open for Western European states after defeating Norway and Italy.

The Security Council’s five permanent members with veto powers are Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

The five countries that got elected Thursday will replace Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland, whose terms end December 31.

Somali and the other elected new members will join existing non-permanent members Algeria, Guyana, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone and Slovenia, whose terms started in January.

According to United Nations, the 10 non-permanent seats on the Security Council are distributed according to four regional groupings: Africa and Asia; Eastern Europe; Latin America and the Caribbean; and the Western European and other States group.

In another session, the General Assembly chose Cameroon’s Philémon Yang by acclamation to serve as its next President for the seventy-ninth session.

Cameroon was endorses by the Central African States early at the Economic Community of Central African States Summit.

Mr Yang thanked his predecessors and all member states for the “art and science” that each of them deployed during their term’s complex deliberations.

He said the African Union spared no effort to achieve the choice of a single continental candidate, adding that the election is an honor for his country.

“We are living in very difficult times marked by very striking contrast,” he said, according to a statement from the UN Press.

The new assembly president noted the conflicts around the world and the unbearable toll on civilians and refugees, as in Gaza and Ukraine.