Italian nun gunned down
2006-09-17 13:48
Mogadishu - An elderly Italian nun was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen at a hospital in the Somali capital on Sunday, witnesses and medical workers said.
The attackers entered the SOS Hospital in southern Mogadishu's Huriwa District and opened fire on the nun before escaping in the ensuing confusion, they said.
"They came into the compound and shot the nun and then ran away," one medical worker told AFP. "We don't know who they were."
The nun, believed to be in her 70s, was one the longest-serving foreign members of the Catholic church in Somalia, officials said.
The killing came amid fury among the country's powerful Islamist movement over comments made by Pope Benedict XVI deemed insulting to Islam.