/ 28 January 2008

Aid workers killed in Somalia blast

Two Somalis and two foreign aid workers working for the Dutch arm of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) were killed by a roadside bomb on Monday near the southern Somali port of Kismayu, witnesses said.

Abdi Adan Duale, a nurse with MSF in Kismayu, confirmed the deaths.

”A Somali driver and two foreigners, a Kenyan doctor and a French logistical officer, were instantly killed in the blast,” he told Reuters, adding that a Somali journalist nearby was killed by shrapnel.

The vehicle was from the Dutch arm of MSF, witness Hussein Abdi told Reuters.

A Reuters reporter saw three bodies in the vehicle.

Susan Sanders, MSF spokesperson in Nairobi, told Reuters: ”We can only confirm a serious incident took place in Kismayu and our team operating there were affected but we cannot confirm any more details at the moment … It’s the Dutch wing of MSF.”

Kismayu, a strategic port, is under the control of the local clan, not Somalia’s interim government.

The government is engaged in fighting a year-long insurgency led by Islamist militants in the capital, Mogadishu, where it and its Ethiopian allies are frequently the targets of roadside bombs and ambushes.

During a two-week offensive in late 2006 and early 2007, the Ethiopian and Somali forces cornered the insurgents near Kismayu and further south, towards the Kenyan border.

Kismayu has been quiet compared with Mogadishu, but Islamists have threatened attacks there and elsewhere as part of their stated aim of establishing Islamic rule in the Horn of Africa country. — Reuters