Mogadishu, July 18: Three foreign aid workers have been kidnapped in a raid by unidentified gunmen in a Kenya border town near Somalia, eye witnesses say.
“The authorities in Mandera (in Kenya) told us that those aid workers had been kidnapped. We’re now going to run after them,” Sheikh Osman, an al Shabaab official in the neighboring district in Somalia, said on Saturday.
The Kenyan officials did not immediately identify the nationalities of the aid workers kidnapped on Saturday and the organization for which they were working.
In Somalia, abductions of locals and sometimes foreigners, particularly ship crew are fairly common. They are a symptom of an 18-year conflict that has killed tens of thousands.
Most foreigners, kidnapped in Somalia, have been released unharmed in the past after hostage-takers received ransoms.
Al Shabaab movement on Friday took possession of two French hostages seized at a Mogadishu hotel on Tuesday. The Frenchmen were working as security aides to President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s government.
In spite of international support, Somalia’s government backed by a 4,300-strong African Union force have failed to take control of rebel strongholds in Mogadishu and other parts of the country.
—–Agencies