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Somalia blast kills four including two aid workers

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Monday, January 28, 2008

By Sahra Abdi Ahmed

 

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KISMAYU, Somalia, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Two Somalis and two foreign aid workers from the Dutch arm of Medecins Sans Frontieres were killed by a roadside bomb on Monday near the southern Somali port of Kismayu, witnesses said.

 

"A roadside bomb blast targeted an MSF-Holland car, killing two foreigners, one Kenyan and the other a white man, and a Somali driver and a Somali journalist who was passing by on the road," witness Hussein Abdi told Reuters.

 

A Reuters reporter saw the bodies in the vehicle.

 

MSF-Holland could not be immediately reached for comment.

 

Kismayu, a strategic port, is under the control of the local clan, not Somalia's interim government.

 

The government is engaged in fighting a year-long insurgency led by Islamist militants in the capital Mogadishu, where it and its Ethiopian allies are frequently targets of roadside bombs and ambushes.

 

During a two-week offensive in late 2006 and early 2007, Ethiopian and Somali forces cornered the insurgents near Kismayu and further south, towards the Kenyan border.

 

Kismayu has been quiet compared with Mogadishu, but Islamists have threatened attacks there and elsewhere as part of their stated aim of establishing Islamic rule in the Horn of Africa country. (Writing by Bryson Hull; editing by Andrew Dobbie).

 

Source: Reuters, Monday, January 28, 2008

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