Gunman shoots aid workers in Somalia
A gunman killed two Western aid workers when he opened fire at a Doctors Without Borders compound in Mogadishu yesterday, police and medics said. “One of the humanitarian workers was killed, the other one was wounded”, a Somali police officer said on...
A gunman killed two Western aid workers when he opened fire at a Doctors Without Borders compound in Mogadishu yesterday, police and medics said.
“One of the humanitarian workers was killed, the other one was wounded”, a Somali police officer said on condition of anonymity following the shooting.
Later a hospital spokesman said the second aid worker had died as well.
Somali security forces arrested the man, a witness said while a Somali police officer identified him as a Somali MSF employee who had likely just been fired.
Mogadishu, the scene of frequent clashes pitting insurgents against pro-government troops, is one of the world’s most violent capital.
Doctors Without Borders (Medécins Sans Frontières - MSF) confirmed that the incident took place inside its compound in the Somali capital but was unable to comment on casualties.
“MSF is doing everything it can to ensure the security of its staff,” the organisation said in a statement.
Local MSF staff said the gunman, a logistics officer, had quarrelled with his employers Wednesday and returned to the MSF compound armed yesterday.
“The gunman has been arrested. He will be questioned tomorrow (today),” a Somali security officer said.
The shooting is the latest attack on humanitarian officials in the Horn of Africa nation, one of the most dangerous places in the world for aid workers and one of the regions that most needs them.
Three regions of south Somalia are still in a state of famine, and close on 250,000 people are in danger of dying of starvation, according to the UN.
Somalia, ravaged by nearly uninterrupted civil war for the past two decades was also the Horn of Africa country hardest hit by this year’s bruising drought. Last week a gunman killed three Somali aid workers, including two World Food Programme staff, in the central Hiran region.
In mid-October two Spaniards working for MSF were seized by gunmen in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp that lies 100 kilometres from the Somali border and that is home to several hundred thousand Somali refugees. The two women were driven into Somalia by their captors.