Kenyan aid workers kidnapped in Somalia

By Cyrus Ombati

Three Kenyan expatriates working with Swedish group International Aid Services were on Wednesday kidnapped in an ambush by an armed group of people near Galkayo, in Puntland, Somalia. 

The team was travelling in two vehicles including an escort car with three armed Puntland Police Officers who were overpowered by the attackers.

One local staff was shot and critically injured and three Kenyan expatriates were kidnapped and taken to an unknown destination.

IAS executive director Leif Zetterlund said in a statement the organization is in touch with the relevant authorities in Galkayo and surrounding areas to facilitate release of the staff.

Their names were not immediately released but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said they are liaising with IAS to establish the identities and release them. 

Galkayo straddles the border separating semi-autonomous Puntland from the self-proclaimed separate region of Galmudug to the south.

The abductions marked the latest kidnappings of foreigners in unrest-plagued Somalia.

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

In October 2011, gunmen seized two Spaniards working for Medecins sans Frontieres in the Dadaab refugee camp. They are still being held hostage in Somalia.

Also that month, a Dane and an American were kidnapped in Galkayo and held hostage for three months before being freed by US Special Forces.

In June, two South African sailors who had been kidnapped in the Indian Ocean in 2010 were freed by Somali Special Forces after they had apparently passed from pirates to Islamist insurgents.

In July 2009, a French agent for the DGSE Foreign Intelligence Service, identified by the pseudonym Denis Allex, was seized from his Mogadishu hotel by Islamist militants and is yet to be released.

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