United Nations Radio

The Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP) has condemned Tuesday's killing of a WFP staff member in southern Somalia.

Josette Sheeran urged all parties to the worsening conflict there to protect humanitarian workers.

According to WFP, three masked gunmen shot and killed 44-year-old Somali national Ibrahim Hussein Duale. He was monitoring school feeding at a village in the Gedo region at the time.

Peter Smerdon is the spokesperson for WFP in Nairobi, Kenya. He says the agency doesn't know of any reason why the staff member was targeted:

WFP in Somalia

"There have been however particularly in the first half of 2008 a series of attacks mainly on Somali NGO workers but also UN staff in Somalia which seemed to be part of a deliberate attempt to sabotage the whole humanitarian response to the crisis in Somalia. So it may be related to those killings in 2008, which are continuing or it may be a completely different matter."

Smerdon says WFP is investigating what might be behind this attack.

Duale is the third staff member killed in Somalia since last August.
This is Donn Bobb reporting for United Nations Radio.
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