One more WFP staffer shot dead

2008-06-13 11:50

Nairobi - Gunmen have killed a World Food Programme truck driver in Somalia, the third to be slain in the war-stricken Horn of Africa nation this year, said the agency on Friday.

"We strongly condemn this attack on personnel and trucks delivering life-saving food," Denise Brown, WFP's deputy director for Somalia said in a statement.

The driver was killed early on Thursday near Leego village in southern Somalia.

Brown said: "Somalia is one of the most difficult places for humanitarian agencies to operate, and it appears to be getting more dangerous."

Last month, a gunman opened fire at a WFP food convoy in central Somalia, killing one driver. Another was killed in February in the south of the country.

Mounting violence had disrupted delivery of aid to hundreds of thousands of civilians uprooted from their homes.

Experts feared that the number of people in Somalia requiring food assistance later this year could reach a total of 3.5 million - nearly half the population, the statement said.

Somalia had been wracked by violence since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre led to a bloody power struggle that had defied numerous bids to restore normalcy.

- AFP