British Teachers Shot Dead in Somaliland

Two British teachers killed by gunmen in north-western Somalia had moved to the east African country because no one else was willing to work there, friends said yesterday.

Richard and Enid Eyeington, 62 and 61, had retired from teaching after working in Swaziland for 32 years, but moved to the self-proclaimed republic of Somaliland a year ago, fearing that plans to reopen a secondary school would otherwise be abandoned.

They were shot through the window of their flat in the school compound in Sheikh, some 550 miles north of the Somalian capital, Mogadishu, on Monday night.

Yesterday, the filmmaker Richard Attenborough, who knew the couple for three decades, said friends and family had pleaded with them not to take the job.

Describing them as "the most inspirational couple I have ever met", Lord Attenborough said: "They lived their belief that every human being had an equal right to education and tragically died making that belief a reality."

Somaliland has been the most peaceful part of Somalia for many years, having elected a stable government in free elections, and experts backed claims by Dahir Riyaleh Kahin, the Somaliland leader, that the killings, like that of an Italian aid worker two weeks ago, aimed to destabilise the republic and force it to participate in the disintegrating peace talks intended to settle Somalia's long-running civil war.

Professor IM Lewis, author of A Modern History of Somalia, said: "It's the sort of thing that is routine in southern Somalia but totally out of kilter in northern Somaliland."

He said there was probably a religious element to the killings, possibly with Islamists.

The boarding school was established during British colonial rule, but was severely damaged in the civil war in 1989. The Austrian aid agency SOS Children's Villages hired the Eyeingtons to reopen the school and its first 100 pupils began their studies in January.

Mr Eyeington had been a headmaster at Waterford Kamhlaba, the multiracial boarding school in Swaziland whose alumni include Nelson Mandela's children. His wife Enid Eyeington ran its community services programme.

Following their retirement in 1995, he became national director for SOS Children's Villages in Swaziland and Enid ran the HIV/Aids programme.

The agency's secretary-general, Richard Pichler, said that everyone at SOS mourned the loss of two "invaluable and very committed family members".