Los Angeles, CA - An International Medical Corps (IMC) staff member who was taken earlier today from the agency's compound in Hudur, in the Bakool Region of southern Somalia, has been released and is now safe. Two UN workers, kidnapped during the same incident, have now also been released.
"We are grateful that this distressing situation ended peacefully and that Hassan, is unharmed," said Rabih Torbay, vice president of international operations for International Medical Corps. Hassan is a logistics officer in Hudur, supporting IMC's life-saving humanitarian interventions in the Bakool region.
This attack is the latest in a growing number of security incidents that have put the lives of relief workers and the general population at risk, and have jeopardized the continuation of critical humanitarian services.
"International Medical Corps is deeply concerned over the worsening security situation in Somalia, and the rapid deterioration of the already limited humanitarian access to the long suffering Somali people ," added Torbay.
International Medical Corps has been operating in Somalia since 1991 and has implemented a range of health care and nutrition programs. Somalia is a country where clan rivalry, cyclical droughts, and a heavy burden of disease present ongoing perils to the population, and it is often called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
A member of an Islamist group is seen during a training on a back street in Mogadishu June 27, 2008. Conflict in Somalia has killed 2, 136 civilians so far this ...
