Hargeysa, Somaliland, February 2, 2008 (SL Times) – An Armenian man working for the demining group Halo Trust was wounded on Wednesday morning after he was shot by an ex-employee in Hargeysa.

Armen Harutyunyan was in his office when Abdi Mohamed Yusuf, a former Halo Trust deminer, shot him once in the left side of his chest.

After the assailant surrendered his pistol to a group of Halo Trust employees, he was himself shot in the leg by a security guard.

According to Halo Trust staff members who were present at the scene of the shooting, Abdi Mohamed Yusuf worked for several years as a deminer with the mine clearance organization before being dismissed recently without benefits.

Somali deminers testified that Mr. Harutyunyan refused to consider the grievances shown by Mr. Yusuf in connection with the termination of his employment without any labour benefits.

“He was treated unfairly and was forced to take the law into his own hands” commented one of Halo Trust’s Somaliland employees shortly after the incident. It was not yet clear why Abdi Mohamed was dismissed from his job.

In the last 10 years since starting operations in Somaliland, Halo Trust has earned notoriety for mistreatment of its local employees. Halo Trust vehicles known for being driven at dangerously fast speed have already been involved in at a least a dozen of tragic traffic accidents. No less than 20 people were either killed or injured in those accidents.

Even after being proven as the faulty side, Halo Trust usually defaulted on payment of compensations.

Several years ago, Somaliland’s chief of the Traffic Department was shot dead in Hargeysa by a man who wouldn’t be compensated after his car was rendered beyond use by a Halo Trust truck.

The alleged killer escaped arrest and the incident almost triggered a tribal war before being settled by clan elders.

Expatriate officer Harutyunyan was evacuated by air to Djibouti for medical treatment shortly after he was shot.

Meanwhile the ex-deminer who shot him was moved from the Hargeysa group hospital to a cell in the headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department in Hargeysa.

Relatives who visited Mr. Yusuf complained that he was not being provided with the necessary medical treatment and care.

Source: Somaliland Times