BAIDOA , Somalia ( CNN ) -- Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed Tuesday appointed a new prime minister -- but the previous prime minister is refusing to accept his dismissal . Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed , in a photo from August , could face sanctions from Kenya . The Somali parliament on Monday backed Nur Hassan Hussein , who has been prime minister for about 13 months , in his power struggle with the president . Tuesday , the president named Mohamed Mohamud Guled , a close ally of the transitional federal government , as the new Somali prime minister . The move is likely to deepen the political impasse in a country already struggling with an Islamist revolt , a refugee crisis and rampant lawlessness that has fueled a wave of piracy off the Horn of Africa . Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991 . The United Nations-backed transitional government took office after Ethiopian troops ousted an Islamist government at the end of 2006 , but controls little of the country outside the southwestern city of Baidoa . Yusuf said Sunday he was firing Hussein for being ineffective . Hussein said the president did not have the power to fire him . The vast majority of members of parliament backed Hussein Monday in a vote of confidence . But Tuesday Yusuf announced he had `` decided to appoint the new premier to pull the country out of the current violence and non-functioning government . '' He said Guled would form a Cabinet , which the president would appoint without asking parliament to confirm it . Kenya warned it could impose sanctions against Yusuf on Tuesday , saying the power struggle between him and Hassan endangers peace efforts in Somalia . Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula singled out Yusuf in a sharply worded statement that called his current standoff with Hassan `` totally destructive , unhelpful to the region and to Somali society in general . '' Wetangula said Yusuf and his family could face targeted sanctions over his Sunday decision to sack Hassan . `` President Abdullahi Yusuf is a party to the summit deceleration and the Djibouti peace process and should not therefore take any unilateral decisions which hinder the attainment of peace in Somalia , '' Wetangula said . `` The current peace initiatives are at a critical stage and require support of all the peace loving Somalis and the region as a whole . The deviation from this path is certainly to bound to jeopardize the peace process . '' Kenya is a major player in international efforts to stabilize Somalia . The chaos in Somalia has driven sharply higher numbers of desperate people to seek passage across the Gulf of Aden , with smugglers packing as many as 150 people into boats as small as 25 feet ( 8 meters ) for the crossing , according to a spokesman for the aid group Doctors Without Borders . `` It is a very , very dangerous journey and the smugglers are very , very cruel with the refugees , '' Andreas Koutepas , a field coordinator for the group in Yemen , told CNN 's `` Inside Africa . '' `` We have many incidents of stabbing or people suffocating and just being thrown in the sea . '' In addition , smugglers want to avoid detection by the Yemeni coast guard -- `` So sometimes they just disembark people in deep water , '' Koutepas said . `` And since most of the people can not swim , they just drown . '' At least 24 people have drowned off Yemen in December so far , he said , and another half-dozen are unaccounted for . But since many of the refugees `` consider themselves already dead '' if they remain , `` They take their chances with this trip , no matter how dangerous the trip is . It 's a quite tragic situation . '' CNN correspondent David McKenzie and journalist Mohamed Amiin Adow contributed to this report .
Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed becomes country 's prime minister on Thursday . PM refuses to resign ; president backs him ; Yusuf appoints new PM . Kenya threatens sanctions on Yusuf , claiming he 's supporting development efforts . Somali has been without effective central government since 1991 .