SOMALIA: Aid workers have condemned the killing of a British couple working as teachers in Somalia and have warned that a string of murders of foreign workers could endanger relief work in the impoverished country.
Richard Eyeington (62), the headmaster of the Sheikh secondary school, and his wife Enid (61), a teacher at the school, were shot dead as they watched television at home in the north-western enclave of Somaliland on Monday.
The shootings followed the killings of an Italian and a Kenyan, bringing the number of murdered foreign relief workers in Somalia to four in less than six weeks.
The United Nations resident and humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia, Mr Maxwell Gaylard, said: "The deliberate targeting of aid workers threatens the lives not only of those who are trying to help the Somali people, but the Somalis themselves, whose access to aid may be jeopardised if we can't do our work safely."
The Somalia Aid Co-ordination Body, comprised of donors, UN agencies and non-governmental organisations, said the deaths showed security was worsening in Somalia, which collapsed into anarchy 12 years ago.
Aid workers are particularly concerned by threats to their personnel in Somaliland, which declared independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991 and had been regarded as relatively safe in comparison to lawless swathes of the rest of the country.
Somaliland leader Mr Dahir Rayale Kahin said the latest murders were part of a conspiracy to undermine his republic, which is not recognised internationally.