Airstrike Hits Displaced Somalis

Aid Group Says Three People Killed

An airstrike hit a camp for people displaced by Somalia's humanitarian crisis Sunday, leaving three dead and dozens of people injured, the aid group Doctors Without Borders reported.

The camp was hit during an aerial bombardment on the southern Somali town of Jilib early Sunday afternoon, the medical relief agency said in a written statement. Most of the 52 wounded its staff treated were women and children, the group said.

The group did not identify the source of the attack, but urged "all parties to the conflict in Somalia to respect the rights of civilians in conflict."

Kenya launched a military incursion into southern Somalia on October 15 in an attempt to push back the Islamist rebel group al-Shabaab, which controls most of Somalia's south. There was no immediate response from the Kenyan military to the report.

About 1,500 displaced Somali families live in the Jilib camp, with many of the children suffering from acute malnutrition, Doctors Without Borders said. They are among the hundreds of thousands displaced by drought, famine and fighting in Somalia, where an estimated 2.2 million people now depend on food aid, according to U.N. officials. The drought has given way to heavy seasonal rains in the south that are now hindering the delivery of humanitarian assistance, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported Friday.

Meanwhile, two foreign aid workers kidnapped last week in Somalia are alive and well, a Danish aid group said Sunday.

Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Poul Hagen Thisted, 60, were abducted by gunmen Tuesday after visiting humanitarian projects in the northern Galkayo area, the Danish Refugee Council said.

"I have been told that contact was established today, and I am pleased to announce that both Poul and Jessica are doing well given the circumstances," said Ann Mary Olsen, head of the council's international department.

Buchanan is from the United States, while Thisted is from Denmark.

Both were working for the council's demining unit, which aims to make civilians safe from landmines and unexploded ordnance.

The U.S. State Department confirmed last week that a U.S. citizen had been kidnapped in northern Somalia but declined to give more details, citing privacy laws.

A number of high-profile abductions of foreigners have occurred in recent weeks in Kenya, close to the border with largely lawless Somalia. Those kidnappings have been blamed on the Somali Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab.

Source: CNN