Gunmen kidnapped an American, a Dane and a Somali working for a Danish group which clears landmines in northern Somalia the second capture of Western aid agency staff in the region this month.
“Today, at 3 p.m. (1200 GMT) in Somalia, three staff members from the Danish Demining Group have been kidnapped. One is a Somali man, two are international staff members, an American woman and a Danish man,” the group said in a statement.
Danish Demining Group is part of the humanitarian agency the Danish Refugee Council and works in 10 countries, including Afghanistan and Iraq, clearing landmines and unexploded ordnance, Reuters reports.
Somali gunmen kidnapped two Spanish staff working for Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) from the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya on October 13 and took them across the border into the anarchic Horn of Africa nation.
Abshir Diini Awale, minister of the interior and national security in the Somali region of Galmudug, said the aid workers were seized in the southern part of Galkayo town shortly after arriving at the airport.
“We don’t know who kidnapped them, but we have alerted our security forces to track down the hostages,” he told Reuters.
Galkayo straddles the border between the semi-autonomous Somali province of Puntland and the Galmudug region. Al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab rebels do not have a strong presence there.
Colonel Mohamed Hassan, a military official in Galmudug, said the workers may have been taken by their security detail. He said the kidnappers were heading towards the Somali coast.
A Somali pirate who gave his name as Abdi told Reuters from Galkayo that a group of pirates was behind the abduction and the captives were being taken to a coastal haven.
Somali pirates have made millions of dollars from hijacking ships in the busy shipping lanes off Somalia and keeping the crews hostage until ransoms are paid for their release.
However, more and more merchant vessels now carry well-armed security teams to fight off pirate attacks at sea. Analysts and diplomats have warned that the seafaring gunmen might turn to other targets to make money.
Besides the abduction of the Spanish aid workers, suspected Somali gunmen also seized a British tourist from a northern Kenyan beach resort in September and a French woman from the same area on October 1. The French woman later died.
