Italian nun shot dead in Somalia

[stu]

An Italian nun has been shot dead in a hospital in the Somalian capital, Mogadishu, witnesses and medical workers say.

 

 

Gunmen entered the SOS Hospital in southern Mogadishu's Huriwa district and opened fire on the nun before escaping in the ensuing confusion, witnesses said.

 

"After serious injuries, she died in the hospital treatment room. She was shot three times in the back," said Dr Ali Mohamed Hassan, a physician at the hospital.

 

The nun, believed to be in her 70s, was one of the longest-serving foreign members of the Catholic church in Somalia, officials told AFP news agency.

 

 

 

Unconfirmed reports said the nun's bodyguard had also been killed.

 

 

 

Yusuf Mohamed Siad, head of security with the Islamic courts who control Mogadishu, told AP news agency that the group had arrested two people, but did not give further details.

 

Pope anger

 

A Vatican spokesman called the killing "a horrible episode" and said it hoped that the incident would be "an isolated fact".

 

The killing comes as anger has risen among members of the country's popular Islamist movement over comments made by Pope Benedict that were deemed insulting to Islam.

 

On Friday, a prominent hardline Mogadishu cleric called for Muslims to "hunt down" and kill the pope for his remarks.

 

"Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim," said Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin during Friday prayers.

 

Somalia, a Horn of Africa nation of some 10 million mainly moderate Muslims has been wracked by instability for the past 16 years and has recently seen the rise of fundamentalist Islamists, who seized the capital in June.

 

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8A3...D716EE03310.htm