Heavily armed gunmen in Somalia’s lawless capital of Mogadishu overnight shot dead an outspoken Somali aid worker and peace activist who headed an NGO in the shattered African nation, witnesses said on Monday.
They said about six gunmen raided the home of Abdulkadir Yahya Ali, co-founder and director of the Centre for Research and Dialogue (CRD), tied up watchmen and disconnected telephone lines.
They hauled Ali out of his house in the capital’s Daynille residential district, shot him dead and made off with his laptop computer, neighbours said on condition of anonymity.
”The gunmen tied him up and shot him in full view of his wife,” said one witness.
It is not clear why he was killed, but humanitarian workers have increasingly been targeted in Somalia, whose government collapsed in 1991 when dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was toppled.
The United Nations condemned the killing and said the fragile country has lost a notable personality, especially at a time when factions within the transitional federal government are wrangling over which town should host the government.
”We are shocked and dismayed by this assassination and send our sincere condolences to his family and friends,” UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Somalia Maxwell Gaylard said in a statement.
”Yahya was a committed advocate for peace and reconciliation, and his optimism never faltered. This is a great loss to Mogadishu and Somalia at this particular time when people of his courage and tenacity are most needed,” he added.
Somali watchers speculated that Ali’s uncompromising position on restoration of stability in the country might have cost him his life.
”He was an outspoken peace activist. Maybe some people thought it was not appropriate to advocate in favour of the government of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed,” said an official from the Somali government, who requested to remain unnamed.
Yusuf strongly opposes the Mogadishu warlords who want the government — which is in the process of moving to Somalia from exile in Kenya — to be set up in the unstable, bullet-scarred capital.
He is currently based in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, which he controlled before he came to office last October.
The CRD is an affiliate of the Wartorn Societies Project International, which promotes peace initiaves in countries ravaged by conflicts.
In April, gunmen killed a Somali female aid worker and injured her male Kenyan colleague, and in February a BBC journalist was slain in the capital. Neither of these apparently targeted murders has been resolved. — Sapa-AFP