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The authorities in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, have lifted the ban on two BBC reporters, according to a senior official in the region's commercial capital, Bosaso.
Abdishakur Mire Adan, the Puntland deputy information minister, told IRIN that the region's internal affairs minister, Ahmad Abdi Habsade, had made the announcement in a letter addressed to the BBC.
The reporters, Ahmad Muhammad Kismayo and Muhammad Khalif Gir, were banned from reporting from the region last year after being accused by the authorities of "not being objective in their reporting of events in the region".
"These two gentlemen have been banned, because they have not been and are not objective in their reporting of events in the region," a Puntland official told IRIN at the time.
Isma'il Warsame, the chief of cabinet of the region's leader, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad, told IRIN that he hoped the two reporters "will in future report events objectively and without bias". Puntland was still waiting for the BBC to send officially accredited reporters to the region, he added.
Attempts by IRIN to contact the two reporters were unsuccessful.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
