Aid Workers Leave Somali Port
The aid agency Doctors Without Borders evacuated its eight foreign staff members from a southern Somali port Wednesday after a British staff member was briefly kidnaped.
The Briton, Tim Boucher, was freed after two hours, but he and other agency workers said they expected all expatriate aid workers to leave Kismayu by the end of the month.
They told a news conference in Nairobi it is possible widespread fighting will erupt in Kismayu because of the withdrawal of 1,200 Indian U.N. troops by the end of the month.
U.N. officials have long considered Kismayu a flash point for renewed civil war in Somalia that could lead to a famine similar to the 1992 famine that prompted U.S. and U.N. forces to intervene.
Jo Robays of Doctors Without Borders said security is deteriorating because of increased tension between three main clans over who would control the airport and seaport when U.N. troops leave.
Robays said Boucher, 30, was kidnaped by gunmen from a sub-clan of the Marehan clan, who believed they did not have enough of their people working for aid agencies.
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