At least 15 people said killed, 40 injured in Mogadishu attack...Relief workers evacuated from Mogadisho..

SW News

Title: [SW News] ( Sources) At least 15 people said killed, 40 injured in Mogadishu attack...Relief workers evacuated from Mogadisho..
Posted by/on:[AAJ[[29 Mar 2001]

At least 15 people said killed, 40 injured in Mogadishu attack
[Financial Times Limited - All Rights Reserved]

BBC Monitoring International Reports via NewsEdge Corporation : 03/28/2001

Mogadishu: Militiamen loyal to a Mogadishu faction leader yesterday attacked and kidnapped UN and MSF [Medicins Sans Frontieres]-Spain officials from the latter's compound. Reports say the motive of the attack was purposely to kidnap UN officials who were on a fact-finding mission on the security situation in Mogadishu...

Reports say at least 15 people were killed and 40 others injured in yesterday's fighting. Further reports say the fighting has created tension and serious anxiety about security.

Source: Ayaamaha, Mogadishu, in Somali 28 Mar 01 p 2

Asia Intelligence Wire <<BBC Monitoring International Reports -- 03/28/01>>

Relief workers evacuated from Somalia say they worry about.....

[The Associated Press]

Associated Press Leased Line via NewsEdge Corporation : BC-Somalia-Aid Workers,0376

Relief workers evacuated from Somalia say they worry about colleagues

By CHRIS TOMLINSON= Associated Press Writer=

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) _ Two U.N. relief workers evacuated from Somalia said they were happy to be out of danger but were worried about four colleagues still being held in the Horn of Africa nation.

Briton Jonathan Veitch and American Sheldon Yett were ambushed Tuesday morning while riding in a convoy carrying 11 international relief workers to assess a cholera outbreak in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. They were apparently caught in a dispute between the guards who work for the Spanish branch of Medecines sans Frontieres and another militia

Veitch and Yett both work for the U.N. Children's Fund, based in neighboring Kenya and were on a temporary assignment in Somalia.

"We are not entirely sure how it happened," Veitch, 32, said. "We were leaving the MSF-Spain compound to go to a hospital where the cholera treatment center that UNICEF is supporting exists.

"There is a cholera outbreak in Mogadishu at the moment and one of the reasons we went to Mogadishu is to go and see what the situation is in the country ... As we left the shooting started and we had to go back inside."

Within an hour, the relief agency's compound was overrun by the attacking militia, witnesses said. As it was being looted, Veitch, Yett and three MSF aid workers were taken to another compound.

"We were never hostages. We were taken to a place and kept safely and then released at about 2 o'clock this morning," Veitch said. "Obviously if someone is shooting at you you feel threatened ... (Now) I feel fine, a bit tired, I didn't sleep last night, but I feel good."

Veitch and Yett were discouraged from saying anything more by U.N. officials who met them at the airport.

"I'd like to say more. Perhaps we can say more after our friends are released," Veitch said.

Yett also decline to comment further. "We are thinking about our colleagues that are still there," Yett said.

<<Associated Press Leased Line -- 03/28/01>>

March 29, 2001

5 Aid Staff Safe; 4 Missing in Somalia
[The Associated Press]

The Associated Press via NewsEdge Corporation : MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) _ Five foreign aid workers trapped by militia fighting in Mogadishu were safely evacuated from Somalia on Wednesday, but U.N. officials said four U.N. staff were abducted and were being held by militiamen opposed to the country's new government.

Three workers with Medecins sans Frontieres, or Doctors without Borders, and two from UNICEF arrived safely in neighboring Kenya on Wednesday night.

While we are delighted to welcome our two colleagues back, our thoughts are still very much with the four people still held captive in Mogadishu,'' said Kevin Farrell, acting U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia.

The United Nations was in indirect contact with the four workers and with those responsible for their abduction, Farrell said. The four work for UNICEF and the World Health Organization.

Two vehicles carrying the aid workers got separated Tuesday from a convoy that came under attack by gunmen loyal to faction leader Musa Sude Yalahow as it left the medical relief agency's compound in north Mogadishu.

U.N. spokeswoman Sonya Laurence Green said the four U.N. employees were believed to be ``in the hands of Musa Sude Yalahow.'' Following a fierce, running battle in north Mogadishu on Tuesday, U.N. officials said they were not sure why the four were still being held.

Local reports said two of them _ an Algerian and a Belgian _ were being held in Yalahow's compound, while the other two _ both Britons _ were under guard in a nearby garage.

Local reports said at least 14 Somalis died in Tuesday's fighting and that another 40 were injured. There was no fighting in Mogadishu Wednesday morning.

Yalahow was in Ethiopia Wednesday to meet with other faction leaders opposed to the new government in Somalia, the country's first central government since 1991.

Yalahow's representatives in Mogadishu refused to comment on the situation. The faction leaders said they would answer questions at a press conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Thursday.

The aid workers who were freed _ two Spaniards, a Briton, an American and a French national _ flew to Nairobi, Kenya after meeting with Prime Minister Ali Khalid Gallaydh, who apologized for the incident.

``You can see what such people can do to aid workers and they even could do a lot worse,'' he said. ``We used all of our means and will continue using it for the safe release of those still missing.''

Gallaydh criticized U.N. security officers for allowing a meeting of aid workers near one of Yalahow's militias. He accused the United Nations of ignoring security warnings and refusing to accept security offered by the new government.

``Then when something happens, the government is blamed,'' Gallaydh complained.

Dahir Dayah, the interior minister, said the government was trying to secure the release of the four U.N. staff.

``If they don't release them unconditionally, of course we will use force for their release,'' Dayah said. ``We don't want fighting, and we are avoiding armed confrontations as much as we can so as not to endanger the lives of the aid workers. But the force build up will help the negotiations go smoothly.''

On Tuesday, an aide to Yalahow, who opposes the Mogadishu administration, said the incident would demonstrate to the world that President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, who was attending the Arab Summit in Amman, Jordan, doesn't even control the Somali capital.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday that the United States ``wants to make clear that hostage taking is unacceptable.''

He said U.S. officials were coordinating with U.N. security officers to secure their release.

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