The aid agency Care International is calling for an investigation after one of its workers was shot dead in an ambush in Somalia. A spokesman for the organisation in Nairobi said that the Shueb Mohamed Hussein, a local employee of Care, was killed on Sunday, when the car in which he was travelling was ambushed north of the capital, Mogadishu.

Mr Shueb, an engineer, had been on his way to assess some rehabilitation projects. Despite the presence of an armed escort, the gunmen shot him dead. Two other Care employees, who were also travelling in the car, managed to escape. Care International knows that in a country like Somalia - which has neither a central government nor a police force - it will be difficult to have the kind of investigation which the organisation wants.

Motive not known

A spokeswoman for the organisation said it was not thought that Mr Shueb was targeted because he worked for Care. But it is still not known whether he was a victim of random banditry or was killed as an act of revenge by one clan against another. Whatever the motive, his death has highlighted once against the dangers for aid workers in Somalia.

Three months ago, in the same area, a Somali doctor working for the United Nations children's fund, Unicef, was also killed when his car was ambushed.

Care's country director for Somalia, Scott Faiia, said that aid workers were always exposed and vulnerable. In the past, when aid workers have been killed, organisations working in Somalia have sometimes suspended development projects as a mark of protest.

Somalia's civil war has been going on since 1991, but a UN report last year said that much of the violence now was banditry.