Two foreign NGO staff kidnapped in Somalia

[Jacaylbaro]

MOGADISHU — AFP- Two foreign staff of an international non-government organisation were kidnapped in northern Somalia on Wednesday, probably by pirates, a local police official told AFP.

 

"We are not yet sure who the kidnappers could be, but they are likely pirates," said Mohammed Ise Hassan, a police official in Galkaio town, adding that the abductees were believed to be from an African country and that their driver and two of their police escorts were wounded.

 

The kidnapping took place Wednesday afternoon near the village of Baadweyn. He did not say which group employed the workers.

 

It marked the latest kidnapping of foreigners in unrest-plagued Somalia.

 

Last week four foreigners working for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) were released in southern Somalia following a joint operation by Somali and Kenyan forces three days after their kidnapping.

 

In October 2011 gunmen seized two Spaniards working for Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in the Dadaab refugee camp. They are still being held hostage in Somalia.

 

Somalia has been roiled by unrest and without an effective government for nearly 20 years, with Islamists, warlords, criminal gangs and pirates controlling portions of the vast east African country.