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Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which claims to be the largest health
provider in Somalia, says it is now facing a tough decision, whether to
remain in the famine-plagued nation, after the fatal shooting of two of
its international staff at a hospital in Mogadishu last week.MSF executive director Remi Carrier said here on Thursday that the shootings came as a shock because the pediatric hospital in Mogadishu where the murdered Indonesian and Belgian staff members were working was “well protected”.
“It’s shocking that he [the shooter] could enter the place with a gun. At the time of the incident, there were about 20 armed guards inside the [hospital] compound. And we were using security equipment like metal detectors.”
“Somalia is the only place in the world where the MSF works with armed guards,” Carrier said in an interview with two Indonesian media outlets, including The Jakarta Post.
Speaking at the same press briefing, MSF international president Unni Karunakara said the Geneva-based international humanitarian organization had always paid the utmost attention to the security of both its international and local staff while providing healthcare services in Somalia.
However, last week’s shooting, which is the latest of similar incidents that MSF has experienced during its 20-year humanitarian mission to Somalia, has forced the organization to go through a “process of internal reflection and discussion”.
“The dilemma we’re facing is that Somalia is probably the country that is most in need of humanitarian assistance but it’s a very difficult environment. There are different layers of conflicts; so our ability to travel within Somalia is very limited,” Karunakara said.
“Hopefully, next week we will have a better sense of what our programs will be like in Somalia but I can tell you it’s going to be a very difficult decision. The last thing we want is to stop providing services to the people because the implication of that is huge,” he added.
Karunakara said MSF currently had about 4,500 staff members in Somalia, most of whom were locals. About 20 international staffers were stationed in Mogadishu, including Andrias Karel Keiluhu, 44, one of the two fatalities of last week‘s shooting.
Andrias was an Indonesian doctor and a volunteer for MSF since 1998.
He had only been in Mogadishu to run the pediatric hospital project for a month when a local MSF employee named Ahmed shot him in the leg in his office just next to the hospital.
Andrias was quickly transferred to another hospital in Mogadishu specializing in war trauma but died after undergoing surgery.
Ahmed also shot Philippe Havet, 53, from Belgium, the head of the MSF team in Somalia. Havet died instantly in the attack.
Carrier said Ahmed, who was now in police custody in Mogadishu, most likely acted individually and was not linked to any armed groups in Somalia.
He denied reports that MSF had dismissed Ahmed before the incident took place, although he acknowledged that Ahmed was being questioned about an issue, which the media have reported as being medicine theft allegations.
Carrier and Karunakara were in Jakarta on Thursday to pay their respects to the remains of Andrias at his family residence in Bintaro Jaya, South Jakarta.
The remains arrived in Jakarta on Wednesday evening while the funeral is scheduled to take place in Tanah Kusir cemetery in South Jakarta at 2 p.m. on Friday.