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UNHCR Statement on the murder of a staff member in Mogadishu, Somalia

Press Releases, 14 December 2015

It is with great sadness that UNHCR has learned of the killing of one of our colleagues, Amina Noor Mohamed, this afternoon in Mogadishu, Somalia. Amina was shot by unknown gunmen while travelling in a private vehicle driven by a staff member from a UNHCR partner organization who also lost his life in the attack.

Amina had been working as Senior Community Services Assistant with UNHCR in Mogadishu since 2011. She leaves behind her husband and two children, aged 2 years and 3 months. UNHCR's Representative in Mogadishu and other colleagues are in contact with the surviving family and are extending all possible support to them. A minute of silence will be held in Amina's memory at UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva at 11 am tomorrow.

"While the details of this senseless act of violence are still being investigated, it serves as another stark reminder of the dangers many humanitarian workers face in their daily work. On behalf of all UNHCR staff, I wish to convey our heartfelt condolences and solidarity to Amina's family, friends and to our entire team in Somalia, as well as those of our fallen NGO colleague," United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said.

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Crossing the Gulf of Aden

Every year thousands of people in the Horn of Africa - mainly Somalis and Ethiopians - leave their homes out of fear or pure despair, in search of safety or a better life. They make their way over dangerous Somali roads to Bossaso in the northern semi-autonomous region of Puntland.

In this lawless area, smuggler networks have free reign and innocent and desperate civilians pay up to US$150 to make the perilous trip across the Gulf of Aden.

Some stay weeks on end in safe houses or temporary homes in Bossaso before they can depart. A sudden call and a departure in the middle of the night, crammed in small unstable boats. At sea, anything can happen to them - they are at the whim of smugglers. Some people get beaten, stabbed, killed and thrown overboard. Others drown before arriving on the beaches of Yemen, which have become the burial ground for hundreds who many of those who died en route.

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As the refugees flow back into Somalia, UNHCR plans to close Aisha camp by the middle of the year. The few remaining refugees in Aisha - who come from southern Somalia - will most likely be moved to the last eastern camp, Kebribeyah, already home to more than 10,000 refugees who cannot go home to Mogadishu and other areas in southern Somalia because of continuing lawlessness there. So far refugees have been returning to only two areas of the country - Somaliland and Puntland in the north-east.

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In a spectacular sight, 16 tonnes of plastic sheeting, mosquito nets, tents and blankets, were dropped on each run from the C-130 transport plane onto a site cleared of animals and people. Refugees loaded the supplies on trucks to take to the camps.

Dadaab, a three-camp complex hosting some 160,000 refugees, mainly from Somalia, has been cut off from the world for a month by heavy rains that washed away the road connecting the remote camps to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Air transport is the only way to get supplies into the camps.

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