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Local aid workers in Somalia meet, flee
(SomaliNet) As anxiety rose over growing insecurity and the unexplained killings of humanitarian staff, local aid workers in Somalia held crisis meetings on Sunday. This year, unidentified gunmen have killed at least three aid workers in the anarchic Somalia and are holding four of their foreign colleagues hostage. In the past week, fears were raised further by leaflets threatening local NGO workers with death if they did not quit their jobs.

Sheikh Abdirahim Isse Adow, an Islamist spokesperson, condemned the killings of humanitarian workers. However, he accused some aid agencies of siding with the government and singled out the United Nations Development Programme for criticism, saying it had provided the police with vehicles and salaries.
Since development usually requires a competent police force ...
Aid sources said most agencies working in Somalia were discussing suspending operations in Mogadishu and the south. "It really is the end of the world if we now have to face death just because we are helping poor people," said a local doctor, who asked not to be identified.

In the latest violence, men armed with pistols shot dead the deputy head of a German charity south of the capital on Friday.

A week ago, gunmen killed Osman Ali Ahmed, the local head of the UNDP, in a similar attack. The governor of Baidoa, which hosts Somalia's parliament, said yesterday that UNDP staff had withdrawn from the town. "We expected them to stay and complete their projects, but now they have fled," Abdifatah Mohamed said.
And he can't understand why, either ...
UNDP officials could not immediately be contacted for comment.
As they were fleeing ...

Posted by: Steve White 2008-07-15
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=244275