It is one of the nearer misses in an eventful career on the front line. I have just (after an awful dry spell unemployed) been appointed as interim manager (3 months) of the Norwegian Refugee Council's Education programme here. The programme as I found it when I arrived ten days ago consists of a youth vocational training centre in each of the four major camps and one in town (there are half a million refugees here mostly from Somalia). We, the non-refugee staff live in a huge secured "humanitarian compound" in the small town of Dadaab. The camps are within 15km in two directions. We go there in police-escorted convoys usually. Right now we can't leave the compound even to buy telephone air time.
We have about 600 refugee and Kenyan youth (in the town's Centre) doing a one year course. Half a day on a skill (electrical, computers, masonry, plumbing, hair/beauty etc) and half a day on academics depending on their level - anything from basic literacy and numeracy to secondary equivalent. At the end we form them into small teams for six months and give them some tools to start up a small business. It has mixed results (Somalis are much more naturally traders and dealers than brick-layers).
So yesterday just by coincidence and because there had been low level security concerns already near one of 'my' centres with an amateur IED (improvised explosive device) thrown at a police car a couple of evening before, it was decided that the visiting team (from Oslo - top boss, regional boss, Nairobi boss, would skip the camp youth centre and come to the town youth centre. So I didn't go with them. Their three cars were attacked in a planned ambush in a narrow piece of road leading out of our camp premises. They shot at the drivers. One car got away by crashing through a fence. One driver was killed and the other wounded, hopefully not too badly, in the hip. Another staff engineer was injured in the stomach. They have been flown to Nairobi. One Kenyan staff member was wounded too. Those in the car that got away (my direct boss, an Italian, and the head of the organisation, from Oslo, presumed target??, the regional manager of Somali origin himself sped to a police station and got back to our quarters before long. It seems the others were driven off, one car was apparently immobilised by satellite, so they were all pushed into the other one, which came to a halt about 30 km away. Footprints go off into the bush, 6 kidnappers, two women (Pakistani, Norwegian) and two men (Canadian, Philippino).
Killing in these circumstances is VERY rare but prolonged holding as hostages for ransom can last months. No one has yet claimed to have the hostages and generally it is thought to be the work of bandits rather than a political group like Shabaab. The chances the Kenya police and army will find them in the first day or two is high (we are told they are being tracked, now it is daylight again). It's thorn bush country - our colleagues are unlikely to be strong enough to continue a long forced march. However there are puzzling elements to this attack, and of course later, there will be a lot of questions about why the visit was so widely announced beforehand and why so many high ransom people were in three cars moving very closely together. Agencies usually don't pay ransom but in Somalia the local people are often embarrassed by what has happened and contribute something to get them released. Then a compensatory mechanism if often worked out.
Also, out of at least 30 agencies doing different things in the camps every day - why the Norwegians of all people? Generally no one has a grudge against Norwegians!
