Unidentified gunmen shot and killed an award-winning Italian aid worker in the west of self-declared republic of Somaliland overnight, police in the territory said on Monday.
Annalena Tonelli, who devoted more than three decades to helping Somali refugees, was murdered in the Somaliland town of Borama late on Sunday.
In April, she won the Nansen Refugee Award, named after the Nobel peace prize winning Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who went on to do important international refugee work after World War I.
”No stone will be left unturned to identify and bring to justice those who murdered Tonelli,” said Somaliland’s president Dahir Riyalew Kahin.
Somaliland broke away from the rest of Somalia in May 1991, five months after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and fled into exile.
But it has yet to be recognised by the international community, despite having developed the tools of statehood, including its own currency, penal code and flag. – Sapa-AFP