DRC, 21 October 2025 — The Ambassador of Somalia to Tanzania and the East African Community (EAC), Ilyas Ali Hassan, has officially presented his credentials to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, during a ceremony held in Kinshasa.
During the meeting, the two officials discussed ways to strengthen bilateral relations and cooperation between the two countries, particularly in the areas of regional peace, trade opportunities, investment, travel facilitation, and the release of Somali nationalsimprisoned in the DRC.
The credential presentation follows a diplomatic dispute in September between Somalia’s ambassadors to Kenya and Tanzania over which embassy holds the legal authority to represent Somalia in the DRC.
The dispute arose after a business delegation of Somali and Kenyan entrepreneurs, led by Somalia’s Ambassador to Kenya, Jabril Ibrahim Abdulle, visited Kinshasa without notifying the Somali Embassy in Tanzania. The Tanzanian mission later issued a statement asserting that it alone is officially mandated to safeguard Somalia’s interests in DRC.
The formal credential presentation by Ambassador Ilyas Ali Hassan now settles the matter, reaffirming Tanzania’s Somali embassy as the legitimate diplomatic representative of Somalia to the Democratic Republic of Congo, effectively ending the overlapping claims between Somalia’s missions in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.