One killed in shootout during food delivery

A Somali national was killed when gunmen exchanged fire at a village in drought-stricken southern Somalia while the United Nations food agency was delivering food aid, prompting the organisation to appeal to local leaders and militias for safer access and protection.

The incident happened on Tuesday at Salagle village in Sakow district when lorries contracted by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) were being unloaded. Food distribution could not resume the following day because of tension in the area, the agency said in a statement on Thursday.

"Targeting humanitarian assistance is totally unacceptable; it is callous and violates all international humanitarian principles," said Zlatan Milisic, WFP Somalia country director. "Humanitarian agencies cannot operate where assistance is being targeted. We are already seriously challenged by the logistics of this mission and shouldn't have to watch our backs as well. We rely on Somali leaders to guarantee the safety of humanitarian workers and cargo."

"WFP condemns in the strongest terms this act of violence and calls on the local communities in southern Somalia to act decisively against the culprits. The agency expresses its sincere condolences to the family of an innocent bystander killed in this incident and hopes for the speedy recovery of the injured," the WFP statement said.

Some 1.4 million people in southern Somalia need emergency food aid and other humanitarian assistance because of drought. Relief operations in the country, where a total of 2.1 million people are in urgent need of help, are being seriously hampered because of insecurity and lawlessness.

On 1 March, a UNICEF staff member was abducted in southern Somalia and released 30 hours later. On 13 March, a WFP-chartered ship managed to escape an attack by pirates when it came under fire at sea a few hours after unloading food at the port of Merka. No one was injured, but the vessel was hit by gunmen who tried to intercept and board it from a boat.

A spate of ship hijackings off the Somali coast in 2005, including the detention of two WFP-contracted ships, has slashed ocean transport to the Horn of Africa country and forced WFP to use more costly overland routes to transport food from the port of Mombasa in Kenya.