§ Angus RobertsonTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment his Department has made of the security of deployed aid workers in(a) Somaliland and (b) other regions in 500W Somalia; in what ways the security situation has changed since April; and if he will make a statement. [134755]
§ Hilary BennSince it declared independence from the southern Somalia, Somaliland has developed stability and greatly improved security. In December 2002 and April 2003, Somaliland organised successful municipal and presidential elections, which cemented its democratic credentials and helped to maintain security and stability. Unfortunately, in recent weeks there have been three murders of European expatriates in Somaliland including, on 20 October, the murder of two British schoolteachers in the town of Sheikh. There is no hard information on the motives for these killings and we await the outcorne of on-going investigations by the Somaliland authorities. We and the rest of the international community continue to monitor the security situation in Somaliland closely, and we are reviewing our travel. advice.
Elsewhere in Somalia the situation remains unsettled without any form of effective Government or early prospect of elections. IGAD-sponsored reconciliation talks in Kenya are being reassessed following last week's IGAD Summit and could make progress soon. The region is principally run by armed factions, and there is no guarantee of stability or security there. The UK currently advises against travel to Southern Somalia, where a Kenyan aid worker was recently murdered. UN agencies and international organisations still run humanitarian operations in the south. Somalia has been in a volatile situation since the onset of the civil war in the late 1980s and collapse of the government in 1991.
Although there have been a number of deaths of Europeans there has been no real change in the overall security situation since April 2003.