(Moroni) Comorian President Azali Assoumani, targeted on Friday by a knife attack which “slightly injured” him according to the presidency, was absent on Sunday from the official Maoulid celebrations, an event which he nevertheless very rarely misses, noted an AFP journalist.
The government of the small archipelago in the Indian Ocean was present in its entirety on Moroni’s Independence Square, decorated for the occasion with banners written in Arabic calligraphy.
The head of state “is in good health”, but “he is resting for this long weekend” (Monday is a holiday in the Comoros), Mahamoud Salim Hafi, deputy secretary general of the government, told AFP, “and from Tuesday he will resume, inshallah, his activities”.
The President of the Comoros constitutionally combines the functions of head of state and head of government.
The presence or absence of the head of state on Sunday was closely watched, as he only very rarely misses the Maoulid celebrations (the birthday of the prophet Mohammed) in the archipelago, where almost all of the 870,000 or so inhabitants claim to be Muslim.
“Those who ask for his photo will see him at Maoulid”, this will allow us to “convince them more of his good physical condition”, assured the Minister of Energy, Aboubacar Saïd Anli, who occupies the first place in the government’s protocol order, on Saturday.
Mr. Azali, 65, has not appeared in public or spoken since he was attacked by a young man armed with a knife on Friday at the funeral of a religious leader in a small town overlooking Moroni. No images of him have circulated either.
On Friday evening, the Comorian presidency indicated in a statement that he had been “slightly injured with a bladed weapon” and that his injuries were “not serious”. Mr. Azali “is doing very well” and “ultimately it is more fear than harm”, government spokesperson Fatima Ahamada assured the press on Saturday morning.
Neither the energy minister nor the government spokesperson responded to AFP’s messages asking about the head of state’s absence on Sunday.
“It is probably a rest recommended by his doctors who asked him to avoid emotions and public speaking,” a source close to the presidency, wishing to remain anonymous, told AFP on Sunday when questioned about the head of state’s absence from Independence Square.
The motives for the attack remain unknown. On Saturday, the Moroni public prosecutor, Ali Mohamed Djounaid, announced that the perpetrator, a 24-year-old soldier arrested immediately after the incident, had been found dead on Saturday morning, before he could be questioned, in the room where he was being held.
The magistrate did not reveal where he was being held and by which security service. Two investigations are open, one into the attack on the president, the other into the causes of the perpetrator’s death, he said.