SOMALIA:
Ensure safety of aid workers, UN official urges
NAIROBI, 22 October (IRIN) - A senior United Nations humanitarian
official
has expressed "profound sorrow" at the killing of two British aid
workers
in northern Somalia, saying that no new UN workers would be sent to the
area until it "stabilises".
Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and
Emergency Relief Coordinator, said a total of four international aid
workers had been killed in Somalia since mid-September. He called on
the
local authorities to take immediate action to "find and prosecute"
those
responsible for the killings, and to "ensure the safety and security of
all aid workers in the area".
The two aid workers, Richard Eyeington and his wife, Enid, were shot
dead
on Monday night by unknown gunmen at their home in a school compound
in
the town of Sheikh, where they both worked. The two had been working
for
the SOS Children's Villages NGO.
A statement from the organisation said the couple had worked in
Somaliland
for a year to reopen the SOS school, which had been closed down in the
1970s during the regime of Muhammad Siyad Barre. The secondary school
where the couple worked as a school principal and a teacher housed
about
100 pupils.
The motive of the killing was still unknown, the statement said, adding
that the house had been sealed off and the school closed. Richard
Pichler,
the SOS Children's Villages secretary-general, said "the whole SOS
family
worldwide mourns the loss of two invaluable and very committed family
members".
The Somaliland authorities have called for an immediate investigation
into
the killings. President Dahir Riyale Kahin told journalists in
Hargeysa,
the main town in Somaliland, that his government would "do everything
possible to arrest those who have committed this barbarous and inhuman
crime". "We will also take all the necessary precautions to protect
expatriates who are working in the country," the BBC quoted him as
saying.
The killing of the SOS workers came just two weeks after the murder of
an
Italian hospital director in the same area. Dr Annalena Tonelli was
shot
dead on 5 October in Somaliland, also by unknown attackers.
The murders have raised international concern over the safety of relief
workers in Somaliland.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in New York
said existing UN activities in the area would not be suspended, but the
50
international staff there would confine their activities to the largest
city in the area, Hargeysa.
Rakiya Omar, who is the director of the international human rights
organisation, African Rights, said local residents of Somaliland were
also
affected by increased lawlessness and what she termed "politicisation
of
justice".
Rakiya cited a case in which the family of an 18-year-old man, who was
stabbed to death in March by a fellow student in Sheikh town, was
still
seeking justice after his attacker was allegedly freed at the order of
influential people. "It is little wonder that the government?s promise
to
render justice in the Tonelli case is regarded with cynicism in
Somaliland, as intended largely to pacify the international community,"
Rakiya noted in a recent report entitled "Justice for Somalilanders
too".
"This is a complex case, but it illuminates some of the weakest aspects
of
the criminal justice system, including its vulnerability to political
pressures," she wrote.
SOMALIA: Member of parliament murdered in Nairobi
NAIROBI, 20 October (IRIN) - A member of the Transitional National
Assembly of Somalia, was found murdered in a forest on the outskirts on
Nairobi on Sunday.
The body of Shaykh Ibrahim Ali Abdulle, a prominent Mogadishu-based
businessman and delegate to the peace talks in Kenya, was found - along
with those of a Kenyan businessman and their driver - in the Ololua
forest near Nairobi, according to the Kenyan newspaper, 'Daily Nation'.
Somali sources who saw the bodies told IRIN that "all three men were
shot in the head, execution style".
"This is not a random shooting. It looks like an assassination," said
one Somali source.
However, James Kiboi, a member of the Inter-Governmental Authority on
Development (IGAD) technical committee, which is steering the talks,
told IRIN it was premature to reach any conclusions about the killings.
"The matter is now being investigated by the Kenyan police. Let's wait
for the investigations to finish before reaching any conclusions," he
said.
Muhammad Farah Anshur, interior minister of state in the Transitional
National Government (TNG), said it was too early to comment on a
possible motive for the killing.
"We really need to give the police time to uncover those behind this
dastardly deed before we can comment," he told IRIN. He added that TNG
would issue a statement after the police investigations were completed.
Shaykh Ibrahim, who was a close ally of TNG President Abdiqassim Salad
Hassan, was known as a very humble man "who used his money to further
the peace process in the country", Mire Abdulle, a close friend of the
deceased, told IRIN. "I cannot think of any reason why anyone should
want to kill him."
Shaykh Ibrahim's body will be flown to Mogadishu for burial, at the
request of his family, as soon as arrangements can be made, Mire added.