SOMALIA: One person is injured after Gunmen attack UN World Health Organisation's office in Mogadishu

Record ID: 352619

  • Title: SOMALIA: One person is injured after Gunmen attack UN World Health Organisation's office in Mogadishu
  • Date: 15th May 2007
  • Summary: VARIOUS IMAGES OF THE OFFICE AND DAMAGE (5 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 30th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Somalia
  • Country: Somalia
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA4T0WFPXDBZ9DAC7ZMAXY6VH55
  • Story Text: Gunmen attacked a U.N. World Health Organisation (WHO) office in Mogadishu and wounded a guard in the latest strike near the world body's facilities in Somalia since the weekend.

    The U.N. World Health Organisation (WHO) office in Mogadishu came under attack on Monday (May 14), just two days after U.N. aid chief John Holmes, the most senior U.N. official to visit Mogadishu in a decade, cut short his visit when bombs planted by insurgents killed three people near a U.N. compound.
    "This is first time anything like this has ever happened, this attack came last night at about 8:30, but our guards defended the office and only one of our guards was injured the attack." Mohamed Abdullahi, the acting officer in charge of WHO operations in Mogadishu, told Reuters.
    A U.N. security source who spoke on condition of anonymity said there had been a similar attack on Mogadishu's largest market, the Bakara market.
    The attacks have raised the prospect that insurgents, drawn from disgruntled clansmen and Islamist fighters defeated by the government and its Ethiopian allies, are still active in the seaside capital despite relative calm after fierce fighting.
    The U.N. say recent battles between rebels and allied Somali-Ethiopian forces have killed around 1,300 civilians and triggered the worst displacement crisis in the world.
    The WHO offices are located in south Mogadishu near the airport and are next to the offices of the U.N. children's agency UNICEF.
    Paddy Ankunda, spokesman for the African Union peacekeeping force, said the wounded guard was in stable condition after being treated at hospital for multiple gunshot wounds.
    Aid agencies have accused the government of hampering its delivery of aid shipments to the hundreds of thousands affected by the fighting, and the government has promised to help.
    Somalia is one of the most difficult places in the world to deliver aid, owing to banditry by well-armed militias and the total destruction of infrastructure since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre's 1991 ouster plunged the country into anarchy.
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