Hassan Sheikh Mohamud

Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (Somali; Hassan Ali Hassan, ; born 29 November 1955) is a Somali politician who has served as the president of Somalia since May 2022. He is the founder and current chairman of the Union for Peace and Development Party. He was indirectly elected as President of the Federal Republic of Somalia on 15 May 2022, defeating the incumbent president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo. He previously served in the same position as the 8th president of Somalia from 2012 to 2017. A civil and political rights activist, Hassan was previously a university professor and dean at SIMAD University, which he co-founded. In April 2013, Hassan was named in the Time 100, Time magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. His efforts at advancing national reconciliation, anti-corruption measures, and socio-economic and security sector reforms in Somalia were cited as reasons for the selection. He was born in Jalalaqsi, an agricultural town situated in central Hiran in present-day Somalia, during the trusteeship period, and comes from a middle-class background. Hassan is married to Qamar Ali Omar and has seven children. Early life and education Hassan was born in his hometown of Jalalaqsi in the central region of Hiiraan to a father from the Abgaal clan and a mother from the Hawadle clan. He attended primary and secondary schools in his hometown Jalalaqsi. He later moved to Somalia's capital Mogadishu in 1978, where he studied for three years at the local Somali National University. In 1981, he earned an undergraduate diploma in technology from the institution. In 1986, Hassan journeyed to India and began attending Bhopal University (now Barkatullah University). There, he completed a master's degree in technical education in 1988. Hassan is also a graduate of Eastern Mennonite University's Summer Peacebuilding Institute based in Harrisonburg, Virginia. In 2001, he completed three of the SPI's intensive courses, studying mediation, trauma healing, and designing learner-centered trainings.