By TOM MALITI , Associated Press
Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf is suffering from bronchitis and is using an oxygen mask, an official said Wednesday as the African leader spent a second day in the hospital in Kenya.
Contradictory reports have emerged on the condition of Yusuf, 73, who has had chronic health problems for years and received a new liver in 1996. His hospitalization creates more uncertainty for his volatile country, where his weak government is battling an Islamic insurgency.
\"The president is using an oxygen mask. He has bronchitis,\" said the official, who had direct knowledge of Yusuf\'s condition and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.\"
On Tuesday, Somali officials had said Yusuf had a severe cold, and earlier Wednesday, Mohamed Ali Nur, Somalia\'s ambassador to Kenya, had said Yusuf was exercising and walking around his hospital room.
\"His condition is very fine,\" Nur said.
Yusuf will head to London later this week for his regular, post-transplant checkup, Nur said.
If Yusuf cannot perform his duties as president, the parliament speaker, Sheik Adan Mohamed Nor, would take over.
Yusuf\'s war-wracked homeland faces what the United Nations says is facing the biggest humanitarian crisis in Africa. The government, with help from neighboring Ethiopia, has been battling a ferocious Islamic insurgency that has killed thousands of people this year.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991, then turned on one another. Yusuf\'s government was formed in 2004 with the support of the U.N., but has struggled to assert any real control.
