- A British couple who dedicated their lives to teaching
in Africa were found murdered yesterday at a school in Somaliland.
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- Richard Eyeington, 63, and his wife Enid, 61, were shot
dead in their house on the school compound in Sheikh, in the east of the
breakaway republic.
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- The attack was the second on westerners in a fortnight,
raising fears of an Islamic terror campaign in a country the United States
has previously linked to al-Qa'eda.
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- At his home in Cromer, Norfolk, John Eyeington paid tribute
to his murdered brother, a man who had spent more than 30 years teaching
in Africa and was one of the "good do-gooders".
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- "I was very worried when he decided to go to Somalia,"
Mr Eyeington said. "I knew it was dangerous, and we thought he'd done
enough already. But he was determined, and now he's paid for it with his
life."
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- Lord Attenborough, a close friend of Mr Eyeington's,
said last night he was was "desperately upset" at the news. "They
were an inspirational couple, selfless and courageous," said the Oscar-winning
film director.
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- "They lived and died in the belief that children
everywhere were entitled to human rights, particularly education."
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- Mr Eyeington and his wife were shot as they watched television
on Monday night at their home in the compound of the school, which was
run by an Austrian-based charity, SOS Kinderdorf International.
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- "We don't know exactly what happened as nobody heard
the shots," an official of the SOS Somaliland office said. "Their
bodies weren't found until later on that night." Maria Essajee, a
colleague of the couple, said: "They were very, very lovely people,
probably the nicest people we knew.
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- "This was the last job before they retired."
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- SOS said yesterday it was moving its staff out of Somaliland,
a former British colony which broke away from the rest of Somalia in 1991.
The United Nations ordered field staff to return to the capital, Hargeisa.
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- Two weeks ago, Annalena Tonelli, an Italian aid worker,
was murdered in Boroma, a town close to the Ethiopian border. President
Dahir Riyale Kahin described the latest murders as "political"
and promised a full investigation.
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- Mr Eyeington, the son of a coal miner from County Durham,
became principal of the Sheikh Secondary School in September last year
and his wife took the post of educational adviser.
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- The school was once the country's top boarding establishment
but was destroyed in the late 1980s during massacres directed by Somalia's
former president Mohammed Siad Barre. SOS helped to rebuilt it and last
January it reopened to provide education for more than 100 girls and boys.
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- Mr Eyeington spent 32 years living and working in Swaziland
with his wife before moving to Somalia. He was principal until 1995 of
Waterford School, where Nelson Mandela sent his children. He then became
director of SOS in Swaziland.
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- The couple have two grown-up children, Louise, a barrister
in London and Mark, a teacher in Swaziland.
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- Police in Somaliland said last night four people had
been arrested over the murder.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003.
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- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/10/22/wsom
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