Somali IDPs near Mogadishu by Abdurrahman Warsameh for ISN Security Watch

Largely overshadowed by an al-Shabaab attack on a UN compound in Wajid and the looting of an MSF office in Jilib is the news of the death of Omar Ali Alasow, an aid worker with Daryeel Bulsho Guud (DBG). Omar was shot dead as he sat outside a DBG office at an IDP camp on the outskirts of Mogadishu.

DBG is paying a high price for its work in Somalia. Last year gunmen killed Mohamed Muhamoud Keyre, DBG’s deputy head. In a separate incident Mohamoud Ahmed, a security guard with DBG, was killed when armed men stormed the DBG office in Mogadishu.

Also largely unnoticed was the beheading of four Somali aid workers by al-Shabaab militants earlier this month. According to an ICC report Fatima Sultan, Ali Ma'ow, Sheik Mohammed Abdi, and Maaddey Diil were killed some time after being abducted from the town of Merca on 27 July. According to an eyewitness account the militants beheaded the four after they refused to convert back to Islam.

All four worked with a local NGO that cared for orphaned children.

Tags: Somalia, Incident, Death of aid worker