Somalis Left To Help Themselves Aid Workers Leave In Protest

Somalis tried Thursday to organize relief for flood victims after foreign aid workers left the capital to protest abductions and extortion.

“We can’t fill the gap they left behind, but we should at least give it a try,” said Khadija Ossoble Ali, a local aid worker.

About 70 Somali aid workers, community leaders and businessmen formed a committee to raise money and collect donations for flood victims, and possibly to help with rescue efforts.

The U.N. Children’s Fund called the actions “very generous.”

Most foreign aid workers left Mogadishu on Wednesday to protest the kidnappings earlier in the week of two Italians. They were later released, but two Somalis who worked for the agency were killed.

The agencies also were protesting demands by gunmen that vehicles pay $10 to cross the Green Line in Mogadishu - which divides the city along factional lines.

Aid workers have refused to pay, claiming the demands for money were extortion.

A spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders in Nairobi, Kenya, said the aid workers decided on their own to leave, and were not following any recommendation by the European Union as had been reported earlier.

Warring factions have left Somalia without a central government since a coup ousted the president in 1991.

While most foreign aid workers left Mogadishu on Wednesday, others continued to provide relief in flooded areas of southern Somalia, where at least 230,000 people are homeless. A total of 1,461 people have been confirmed killed in the flooding.