Reporters Without Borders is outraged and saddened by the deaths
of a driver, two foreign doctors and Somali journalist Hassan Kafi
Hared when a bomb was set off today beside a Médecins sans Frontières
vehicle near the port city of Kismayo in the southeastern region of
Lower Jubba.
“Our thoughts are with the families and friends of the victims
and with Médecins sans Frontières,” the press freedom organisation
said. “Humanitarian aid workers, journalists and academics are the
preferred targets of those who want to sustain the anarchy in Somalia
with a view to retaking power. The ever-present danger is aggravated by
the transitional government’s continuing failure to find a way to deal
with these murders.”
A Kenyan doctor, a French doctor, their
Somali driver and Hared were killed when a bomb was set off by remote
control as the car, belonging to the Dutch branch of Médecins Sans
Frontières, drove through Siya, a village to the north of Kismayo.
Hared was not in the car. He was walking along the road and happened to
be beside it.
The correspondent of the state-owned Somali News
Agency (Sonna) and the gedonet.com website, Hared was one of the oldest
members of the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), which is
the Reporters Without Borders partner organisation in Somalia, and he
was its treasurer in the southeast region.
Controlled by local
clans, Kismayo and the surrounding region have for the most part been
spared by the Islamist guerrillas responsible for daily violence in
Mogadishu. But the rebels recently threatened to launch attacks and
bombings outside the capital.
