Somali Killings of Aid Workers Imperil Relief

By Jeffrey Gettleman Saturday, July 19, 2008 NAIROBI, Kenya (NY Times) - At a time of drought, skyrocketing food prices, crippling inflation and intensifying street fighting, many of the aid workers whom millions of Somalis depend on for survival are fleeing their posts — or in some cases the country. They are being driven out by what appears to be an organized terror campaign. Ominous leaflets recently surfaced on the bullet-pocked streets of Mogadishu, Somalia’s ruin of a capital, calling aid workers “infidels” and warning them that they will be methodically hunted down. Since January, at least 20 aid workers have been killed, more than in any year in recent memory. Still others have been abducted. The deliberate assault on aid workers is a chilling new dimension to the crisis in Somalia that has unfolded over the past 17... [read full story]