Two UN employees feared dead
2008-08-18 00:26
Mogadishu - A World Food Programme employee and his chauffeur are feared dead in Somalia after a botched kidnapping, a UN official said on Sunday citing a third member of their party who got away.
"The information we are getting indicates that the kidnappers killed the WFP officer, because the man who was with them managed to escape when the gunmen opened fire on them," a UN official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
While information remained sketchy, the official said that "the hope that those men are alive is fading".
"They kidnapped the officer, his driver and another relative on Friday night ... [but] "things are still complicated" with no proof they have been killed."
A local elder said no bodies had been found, but that blood was discovered at the scene.
The WFP agency distributes aid to about 2.3 million people each month across strife-wracked Somalia, with the UN warning that as many as 3.5 million people will need food assistance before the year because of persistent drought, inflation and insecurity.
Aid workers are often targeted in the restive Horn of Africa nation. Five WFP chauffeurs have already been killed this year.
Late July, an exiled hardline Islamist leader based in Eritrea called for assassinations and kidnappings targeting aid workers to stop "immediately and without delay".