Ruto leaves for Djibouti to attend IGAD meeting
President William Ruto left the country on Saturday evening for an official visit to Djibouti.
In a statement, State House Spokesperson Hussein Mohamed said the President is scheduled to engage in bilateral talks with his Djibouti counterpart President Ismail Omar Guelleh, to strengthen and deepen the existing ties between the two nations.
President Ruto is also scheduled to address members of the Djibouti parliament.
"The discussions will cover various areas of mutual interest, including trade relations, collaboration in the field of green energy, as well as the pursuit of regional peace and security," Mohamed said.
The President will also participate in the 14th Ordinary Assembly of Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Heads of State and Government on Monday, June 12.
The highly anticipated gathering marks the first IGAD summit since 2019.
Critical regional matters including the security situation in Sudan are expected to take centre stage during the meeting.
Ruto scoffs at warring army generals
President Ruto last month urged Sudan's warring general to "stop the nonsense" over the worrying security situation in the country.
Around 1,000 people have reportedly been killed and nearly a million displaced in Sudan since battles between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who leads a paramilitary force erupted in April.
"We need to tell those generals to stop the nonsense," Ruto told a gathering of African lawmakers in South Africa.
The two generals are former allies who together orchestrated an October 2021 military coup that derailed a transition to civilian rule following the 2019 ouster of longtime leader Omar al-Bashir.
Tensions between the generals have been growing over disagreements about how the RSF should be integrated in the army and who should oversee that process.
