UN: Detained Official Safe in Somalia

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN –

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A top U.N. food aid official detained by Somali security forces is unhurt and in touch with U.N. staff, but the world body has received no indication why he was seized, officials said Thursday. 

Two U.N. World Food Program officials have spoken on the telephone with Idris Osman, a Somali in charge of the agency's efforts to help feed people in Mogadishu, and he was sent food and clothing, said agency spokesman Marcus Prior. 

Dozens of heavily armed government security forces seized Osman on Wednesday, the United Nations said. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for his release. 

Nearly 36 hours after his detention, "we still haven't received any information on why Mr. Osman is being detained," said Prior, adding that Osman was unhurt. 

In response to Osman's detention, the World Food Program suspended food aid distributions aimed at helping about 76,000 people. The WFP's offices were closed Thursday, and its nine Somali staff members stayed home for security reasons, Prior said. The government, which on Wednesday denied holding Osman, was not immediately available for comment Thursday. 

Some 1.5 million Somalis are in need of food aid and protection — 50 percent more than at the start of the year — due to inadequate rains, continuing internal displacement and a potential cholera epidemic, the U.N. says. 

Mogadishu has been plagued by fighting since government troops and their Ethiopian allies chased out the Council of Islamic Courts in December. For six months, the Islamic group controlled much of southern Somalia, and remnants have vowed to fight an Iraq-style insurgency. Thousands of civilians have been killed in the fighting this year. Seven people died in four incidents on Thursday around Mogadishu, witnesses said. 

Somalia has not had a functioning governments since 1991, when rival warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other. 

Source: AP, October 19, 2007