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Saturday, April 11, 2009
Mogadishu (AFP) - Hooded gunmen shot dead two Somali aid workers and their driver in a southwestern town near the border with Ethiopia, officials and witnesses said on Friday.
The head of Juba Community Care relief group, which operates in southern Somalia, his colleague and the driver were killed as they were leaving for a field trip on Thursday.
"Unidentified gunmen opened fire on their car as soon as they left for a trip to conduct surveys," Dahir Mohamed, one of their colleagues told AFP by phone from the region.
"We don't know who is behind the attack and the gunmen escaped after they killed the men," local elder Hasan Haji Idris said.
The attack occurred in Elberde, the only town in the southwestern Bakol region controlled by the government.
The motive for the attack was unclear, but aid workers have often been targeted in the lawless Horn of Africa country where 3.25 million people - almost half the population - are in need of humanitarian assistance.
Source: AFP, April 11, 2009