Gunmen attack UN health office in Mogadishu

[Jacaylbaro]

MOGADISHU, May 15 (Reuters) - 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, a WHO official said on Tuesday.

 

The late Monday attack came 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 on Saturday.

 

"We were attacked last night by gunmen wearing (government) uniforms. Our security guards repelled them. Unfortunately one of our guards was wounded," 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 WHO incident is just the same. These are gunmen disguising themselves as government troops. I don't think this will affect UN operations," the source said.

 

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 United Nations says recent battles between rebels and allied Somali-Ethiopian forces have killed some 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 UN children's agency UNICEF offices.

 

Paddy Ankunda, spokesman for the African Union peacekeeping force, said the wounded guard was in stable condition after being treated at their hospital.

 

The guard suffered multiple gunshot wounds, including one in the groin, the U.N. source said.

 

A UNICEF guard said they also helped the WHO guards to repel the gunmen.

 

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. (Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed)