The United Nations welcomed the release today of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) staff member who had been held hostage in Mogadishu. The staff member, Mohamed Farah Omar, and five other Somalis were freed after factional fighting broke out in north Mogadishu, where they had all been held, forcing their captors to flee.

Omar was checked by a UN medical officer and returned to his family.

We have a press release with more information on the release, as well as one on the conclusion of an 11-day visit to Somalia by the UN independent expert on human rights in that country, Ghanim Alnajjar. He called on the international community and local authorities to pay more attention to the appalling conditions of the roughly 320,000 internally displaced people in Somalia.

Also on Somalia, the Office of the UN Humanitarian Coordinator confirmed that the Gedo region in that country has been temporarily closed to all UN air operations and international staff because of insecurity.

Sorry, this is going so long, we still have a lot of stuff to go.

seen at 12:00, 4 September in Spokesman for the UN Secretary General. Email this to a friend.
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