MSF closes Mogadishu hospitals after aid worker killings

Jan 19, 2012, 9:25 GMT

Nairobi - International medical aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) on Thursday said it closed one of its facilities in the Somali capital Mogadishu, following the killing in December of two staff members.

Belgian Philippe Havet, 53, and Indonesian Andrias Karel Keiluhu, 44, were shot dead in the MSF compound in the Hodan district on December 29 by a disgruntled local employee, who is now in police custody.

'It is hard to close health services in a location where the presence of our medical teams is genuinely life-saving every day,' said MSF General Director Christopher Stokes.

'But the brutal assassination of our colleagues in Hodan makes it impossible for us to continue working in this district of Mogadishu,' he added.

The cessation of all MSF services in the district brings the closure of two 120-bed medical facilities to treat patients suffering from malnutrition, measles and cholera.

MSF said the move halved the amount of assistance it was providing in Mogadishu, where many are still struggling from the after-effects of a drought and food shortages that are estimated to have killed upwards of 50,000 people.

The aid agency said it had helped 200,000 Somalis in the district over the last few months.

Mogadishu has been seen as safer since the militant al-Shabaab group pulled out most of its forces in August, prompting an influx of foreign aid workers. But a bombing and assassination campaign by al-Shabaab and general criminal activity ensures insecurity remains high.

The killings were not linked to the Islamist insurgents, and the government at the time of the killings called on aid agencies to keep working in the city.

Al-Shabaab, which has ties to al-Qaeda, has been battling to topple the internationally backed central government in Mogadishu since early 2007. During this period, aid workers have been regularly targeted for murder and kidnap.

In October, two Spanish MSF workers were kidnapped from the Dadaab refugee complex in neighbouring Kenya, which hosts more than 400,000 mainly Somali refugees. MSF repeated its call for the release of the pair, named as Montserrat Serra and Blanca Thiebaut.

The incident prompted Kenya to send a limited military force over the border in an attempt to defeat al-Shabaab - which controls much of southern Somalia - and secure its territory.

Two aid workers from the Danish Demining Group were kidnapped in Galkayo, central Somalia, in October. They too are still being held.