Gunmen in southern Somalia have kidnapped four UN aid workers, three of them foreigners, reports BBC online Monday.
They are said to have been seized in their car while travelling to the airstrip near Wajid, 340 km north-west of the capital Mogadishu. They were on a stopover between Puntland in northern Somalia and their destination of Kenya. The nationalities of the three foreign aid workers have not been released.
Wajid has been controlled by Islamist al-Shabab insurgents for the past three months – but local clan militia also operate in the town – so at this stage it is not clear who is behind the kidnapping.
The UN says 35 aid workers were killed in 2008 and 26 abducted in 2008. Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991.
