Gabbal Posted January 29, 2004 By Mohamed Bile MOGADISHU, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Somali gunmen kidnapped a German United Nations worker on Thursday in the south of the anarchic Horn of Africa country, a militia leader said. In brief statement, the world body announced it was trying to secure the release of an abducted international staffer. "A U.N. internationally-recruited staff member was abducted at 11:30 hours this morning, approximately 45 km (30 miles) north of Kismayo in the Lower Juba Region of Somalia," a U.N. statement said. "The U.N. is in communication with the de facto authorities in the region that are taking steps to secure the release of the staff member." The United Nations did not give the staffer's nationality or gender. The military head of the Juba Valley Alliance (JVA) militia, Mohamed Jimale, identified the staffer as Ralph Heinrich, a German working for the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP). Residents in Kismayo area said Heinrich is head of UNDP security in southern Somalia -- in effect the senior United Nations security officer locally, since UNDP administers security services for all U.N. agencies working in Somalia. Jimale said the kidnappers took control of Heinrich's vehicle at a place called Warkoy bridge, near the town of Kismayo, 500 km (300 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu. Three Somali U.N. workers with whom he was driving were freed later a short distance away, he said. "We will send our militia forces to search and seek to free the German and catch those who did this crime," said Jimale, whose JVA controls Kismayo town in the Lower Juba region. A spokesman for the German embassy in the Kenyan capital declined to comment. U.N. staff or consultants are kidnapped periodically in lawless Somalia, often for use as bargaining chips by disgruntled Somali former U.N. workers dismissed by the organisation and seeking some form of compensation. Most hostages are unharmed and released after negotiations mediated by clan elders. Lacking central authority after the overthrow of a military leader in 1991, rival warlords have carved Somalia into a patchwork of fiefdoms, defying 14 peace initiatives in a decade. The U.N. spokeswoman in Nairobi, which hosts the administrative headquarters for U.N. operations in Somalia, said as of July 2003 U.N. agencies had 856 staffers in Somalia, 56 of whom were international. Most kidnappings or attacks on foreigners happen in the more dangerous southern regions of Somalia. However a British couple, Richard and Enid Eyeington, teaching at a school in the breakaway northern enclave of Somaliland were shot dead in October in their residence in the school compound. The shootings followed the murder of an award-winning Italian aid worker, Annalena Tonelli, 60, earlier that month in another part of Somaliland, shattering the enclave's hard-won reputation as a haven for peace in Somalia. The three killings remain unsolved. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
