28/07/08 (B458) PRESS TV – Les travailleurs humanitaires, cibles de la violence en Somalie / Violence targets aid worker in Somalia (Info lecteur – En Anglais)

Somali kids suffer the most from lack of shelter, food, clean drinking water, sanitation facilities and health services.

A World Health Organization (WHO) aid worker, has been shot and critically injured in southern Somali town of Dinsor, a UN official says.

In the most recent assault against humanitarian officials in the Horn of Africa state, assailants shot Osmail Moalim Ahmed five times in Dinsort town on Sunday.

« He was shot five times on the chest and they left him for dead. He was only giving humanitarian assistance. We don’t know why they targeted him, » a UN official in Dinsor said.

Meanwhile, a local resident Ali Hussein Abdi said that unknown gunmen blocked the aid worker’s way and later sprayed bullets upon him. The armed men also seized his car.

So far this year, 19 aid workers have been killed in conflict-stricken Somalia with 13 others abducted.

The United Nations warns that nearly 2.6 million Somalis face hunger as a result of years of fighting between rival warlords and an inability to deal with famine and disease. The figure is feared to hit 3.5 million by the end of the year.

Aid operations have dwindled in Somalia due to spiraling insecurity caused by fierce clashes between local fighters and Somali-Ethiopian forces.

A seemingly endless cycle of violence has plagued the country since the toppling of President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.