| |
|
 |
Somali
aid workers in crisis talks
after killings
|
 |
| |
MOGADISHU(July
14,2008) - Local aid workers in Somalia held crisis
meetings on Sunday as anxiety rose over growing insecurity and the
unexplained killings of humanitarian staff.
Unidentified gunmen have killed at least three aid workers in the
anarchic Horn of Africa country this year and are holding four of
their foreign colleagues hostage.
Fears were raised further in the past week by leaflets threatening
local NGO workers with death if they did not quit their jobs.
Aid sources said most agencies working in Somalia were discussing
suspending operations in Mogadishu and the south.
"It really is the end of the world if we now have to face death
just because we are helping poor people," said a local doctor
who asked not to be identified.
In the latest violence, men armed with pistols shot dead the deputy
head of a German charity south of the capital on Friday.
A week ago, gunmen killed Osman Ali Ahmed, the local head of the U.N.
Development Programme (UNDP), in a similar attack.
The governor of Baidoa, which hosts Somalia's parliament, said on
Sunday that UNDP staff had withdrawn from the town.
"We expected them to stay and complete their projects, but now
they have fled," Abdifatah Mohamed told Reuters. UNDP officials
could not immediately be contacted for comment.
Islamist fighters attacked Baidoa on July 7, killing at least four
soldiers and firing mortar shells at its airport, presidential palace
and the large refurbished warehouse where lawmakers from the Western-backed
administration meet.
Mogadishu is one of the most dangerous cities in the world, especially
for humanitarian staff. Four aid workers -- two Italians, a Kenyan
and a Briton -- are currently held hostage.
Suspicion for killings and kidnappings usually falls on Islamist rebels
waging an Iraq-style insurgency against the interim government and
its Ethiopian military allies.
Many Somalis say there is confusion over the identities those behind
the recent murders. These, combined with a sharp increase in revenge
killings and general disorder, have caused many to be afraid.
"We have no hope of surviving, let alone helping our patients,"
said Sahro Aden, a 25-year-old nurse who has stayed at home since
reading one of the threatening leaflets.
Fighting the authorities is the al-Shabaab, the armed wing of a sharia
courts group that Ethiopian forces helped the government drive out
of Mogadishu at the start of last year.
An Islamist spokesman, Sheikh Abdirahim Isse Adow, condemned the killings
of humanitarian workers.
However, he accused some aid agencies of siding with the government
and singled out the UNDP for criticism, saying it had provided the
police with vehicles and salaries.
The U.S. military has launched several air strikes inside Somalia
in the paste few months targeting suspects in the deadly bombings
of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998.
In March, Washington formally listed the Shabaab as a foreign terrorist
organisation with strong links to al Qaeda.
|
| |
|
