Foreign aid workers Kidnapped from Kenya rescued

By Cyrus Ombati

Somali government troops rescued four foreign aid workers held hostage inside Somalia, three days after they were kidnapped from a refugee camp in Kenya.

The four were rescued as Kenya said the raid by gunmen at the Dadaab refugee camp raises serious concerns of security there and the country at large.

Reports said the four were rescued in an operation on Sunday night.

"Our forces have rescued the four aid workers kidnapped from Kenya in an overnight rescue operation," Colonel Abdullahi Moalim told Reuters.

"They are healthy and unhurt," he said. The rescue took place in Alibule some 70 kilometers from Afmadow, which is under Kenyan troops.

The four were staff of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC. During the kidnapping on Friday one person was shot dead and another seriously wounded by the armed gunmen who raided Dadaab's Ifo II camp in northern Kenya.

The deceased was a driver of one of the vehicles that was carrying the aid workers working for the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Camp security

Acting internal security minister Yusuf Haji said the attack raises serious concerns about the security of the camp given it holds refugees.

“The attack raises serious concerns about the security of the camps because it seems the attackers had been there as refugees,” he said in Nairobi.

He said the government is “seriously thinking” about the refugee camp inside Kenya.

Police said the kidnapped victims were from Canadia Norway, Pakistan and the Philippines.

Medical officials with the German government aid agency GIZ said a driver with Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) had died and two others were wounded in the attack, which took place in the sprawling Ifo 2 camp.

The incident happened at about 11.15am on Friday as the aid workers drove in two vehicles. A senior official from NRC had visited the camp then.

Witnesses told police the attackers were armed with pistols and they shot one of the drivers in the head killing him instantly before injuring the second one which forced the other occupants of the Landcruisers to surrender.

They then took control of the vehicles before they abandoned one and drove off with the other one with police in hot pursuit.

But the second car was found abandoned several kilometers away from the camp with the kidnapped missing.

Aid workers are usually given police escorts in the camps but the NRC group prefers operating without one.

 

 

 

 

The kidnapping is the latest in a series of attacks in the giant Dadaab camp, where gunmen last October seized two Spaniards working for Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), Montserrat Serra and Blanca Thiebaut.

They are still being held hostage in Somalia.

The kidnapping of the Spaniards was one of the incidents that spurred Kenya to send troops and tanks into Somalia to fight the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents Nairobi blames for abductions as well as for cross-border raids.

The Dadaab complex is the world's largest camp with more than 465,000 inhabitants at the end of May, constituting Kenya's third-biggest town.

Ashabaa still control large parts of southern Somalia, despite recent losses to African Union troops, government forces and Ethiopian soldiers, who have wrested several key bases from the insurgents.

Kenya, which invaded southern Somalia in October before joining the AU force, has a heavy troop presence some 120 kilometres (75 miles) into Somalia from their frontier.