Foreign staff pull out of Somali town

All foreign staff with five aid agencies urgently evacuated the southern Somali town of Buale after a spate of bandit attacks, Reuter reports from Nairobi. Fourteen staff of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and four non-governmental organisations were pulled out of the town, 120 miles north-west of the port of Kismayu, on Sunday. Attacks by bandits began immediately after UN troops withdrew at the end of December and were not replaced.