MOGADISHU (AFP) — Somali government forces stormed the UN compound in Mogadishu on Wednesday and arrested the World Food Programme's (WFP) top representative in the capital.
The Rome-based WFP promptly responded by suspending food distribution to more than 75,000 people in the city.
The relief agency said between 50 and 60 armed members of the National Security Service (NSS) stormed the UN offices in southern Mogadishu at 8:15 am (0515 GMT) and took away the WFP officer in charge of the capital, Idris Mohamed Osman, at gunpoint.
"Mr Osman is being held in a cell at NSS headquarters near the presidential palace. WFP has not received any explanation for this action, which violates international law," it said in a statement.
The agency also noted that international law bars entry to UN premises without prior permission.
A UN official in Mogadishu told AFP that the operation was carried out by troops with machine guns who arrived aboard two trucks and forced their way into the compound.
No shots were fired during the incident.
Peter Smerdon, the WFP's spokesman in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, said the agency was "urgently taking up the matter" with the Somali authorities.
"We are working with relevant authorities on the ground to secure his immediate release," added Marcus Prior, another WFP spokesman.
Officials, who requested to remain unnamed, said the WFP was trying to contact the NSS top officials and President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, to whom the security agency reports.
Osman was detained two days after the WFP resumed distributing food to 75,600 people in Mogadishu. The supplies had first been suspended on June 25.
"In the light of Mr. Osman's detention and in view of the WFP's duty to safeguard its staff, WFP is forced immediately to suspend these distributions and the loading of WFP food from our warehouses in the Somali capital," the agency's statement added.
Government officials could not be immediately be reached for comment.
Violence in Somalia has forced many humanitarian groups to quit the country, leaving UN agencies and a few others who rely on local staff to run limited operations.
The incident came hours after Somali forces battled insurgents in overnight artillery duels that left four civilians dead and at least 34 others wounded.
The clashes broke a week-long lull in the violence between Ethiopian-backed government forces and insurgents allied to an Islamist movement ousted from the country's southern and central regions at the beginning of the year.
Separately, a northern Mogadishu district commissioner and his two bodyguards were killed in a roadside explosion in the north of the capital, police and witnesses told AFP.
Four grenades exploded near the Ethiopian forces patrolling the capital's Blacksea neighbourhood, prompting them open random fire than killed a civilian and wounded two others, said Mohamed Bashir, a resident.
"The Ethiopian forces then arrested seven civilians in the operation," Bashir added.
The insurgents carry out regular guerilla attacks, mainly in Mogadishu, targeting government officials, Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers deployed to bolster the government.
The attacks, as well as inter-clan feuds, have displaced hundreds of thousands from the seaside capital, with most sheltering in squalid settlements in neighbouring regions where they lack basic supplies.
The Horn of Africa nation, home to about 10 million people, has been torn apart by conflict since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre set off a bloody power struggle that has defied numerous internationally-backed peace initiatives.
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