Gunmen killed a Somali working for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Sunday, just two days after another local UN worker was assassinated in the failed Horn of Africa nation, witnesses said.
In the latest attack, three men armed with pistols and assault rifles ambushed the UNICEF worker as he was walking in the southern town of Hudur.
“A man with a pistol shot Muktar Mohammed Hassan several times in the head as he was walking in the center of town,” a UN source said. “He died on the spot and the assailants disappeared in the darkness.”
The attack came two days after another UN worker was murdered as he left a mosque in the central town of Merka.
Aid groups said last week that 24 aid workers — 20 of them Somalis — had been killed so far this year in Somalia, while more than 100 attacks against aid agencies had been reported.
Fighting in the capital Mogadishu, one of the world’s most dangerous cities, has escalated with insurgents now targeting local people working with foreign aid agencies, after most international staff were pulled out of the country.
Somalia’s government and its Ethiopian military allies have been fighting an Iraqi-style insurgency since early last year.
The fighting has killed nearly 10,000 civilians and forced more than 1 million people out of their homes, in what aid groups have described as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, speaking in Mogadishu on Sunday, said his government needed international assistance to stem the menace of piracy off the Somali coast.
“We know that seven warships from NATO are already in the Somali coast, we welcome them ... We ask for the international community’s help to end piracy problems,” Nur told reporters.
Pirates are currently holding dozens of ships — including a Ukrainian vessel carrying tanks and other weapons bound for Kenya — and have asked for millions of dollars in ransom.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS