Region | Somalia
Gunmen kill head of orphanage in Somalia
Gunmen killed the head of an orphanage near the Somali capital Mogadishu in the latest attack on aid workers in the anarchic country, witnesses said on Thursday.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:59 August 7, 2008
Lafoole, Somalia: Gunmen killed the head of an orphanage near the Somali capital Mogadishu in the latest attack on aid workers in the anarchic country, witnesses said on Thursday.
Abdikader Yousuf Kariye was shot dead by the unidentified attackers late on Wednesday at the centre in Lafoole, which is home to 370 orphans. Hundreds of civilians displaced by fighting have also set up camp there.
"We don't know why he was killed," Mohammad Rage Nour, Kariye's deputy, told Reuters, his voice breaking with emotion. "The gunmen fled, leaving him lying in a pool of blood."
He said Kariye had run the centre since it opened in 1970. "He was an innocent man ... this is a big blow to us," Nour said.
A wave of assassinations of senior Somali humanitarian workers has shocked aid agencies and forced many to consider suspending work in the country, endangering tens of thousands of people who rely on food and medical aid.
Suspicion often falls on insurgents who are fighting the interim government and its Ethiopian military allies. The government accuses the rebels of links to radical groups including Al Qaida.
But insurgent leaders accuse government hardliners of masterminding the attacks in an attempt to press the international community into sending a UN peacekeeping force.
At the orphanage, children were in shock. "I am crying because the man was our father," Abdisamad Adan, aged eight, told Reuters between sobs.
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