10/11/08 (B473) Press TV / Un travailleur humanitaire somalien, responsable local de Mercy Corps, ONG américaine, tué par trois tireurs armés non indentifiés. Aid worker shot dead in south Somalia.(Info lecteur – En Anglais)

Unknown armed men have shot dead a Somali aid worker who used to work for an American charity institution in the restive southern Somalia.

Witnesses and elders said that Mohammed Mohamoud Sakow was gunned down as he left mosque after performing the evening prayers on overnight Saturday.

They also noted that three gunmen stopped the officer outside the mosque and killed him. The gunmen, reportedly armed with pistols, escaped after killing him.

« Unidentified gunmen shot him several times in the head and chest after he attended evening prayers in the town’s main mosque. He died instantly, » an elder, Warsame Hirsi, said.

Mohammed Mohamoud Sakow was the local head of Mercy Corps in Jamame township in Lower Jubba region. The aid agency runs developments projects, provides technical assistance and also oversees cash-for-work programs in southern Somalia.

The incident marks the latest in a spate of attacks against humanitarian workers in the war-ravaged Horn of Africa country.

At least 24 aid workers – twenty of them Somalis _ have lost their lives so far this year in lawless Somalia.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991 after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted from power by tribal militias. The ensuing bloody power struggle has defied numerous attempts to restore stability in the nation of some 10 million people.