Kidnapped aid workers released

A Somalian gang released a pair of aid workers who were kidnapped there last week. Though police claimed that the $70,000 ransom was not paid, the kidnappers freed a doctor from Spain and a nurse from Argentina who worked for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). The Somalia trade minister told BBC News that both women are in a hotel safe and sound.

Though the kidnapping occurred in the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland, one local official said that the Spanish branch of Doctors Without Borders has pulled its foreign staff out of southern Somalia:

"MSF Spain withdrew its foreign staff from Jawhar and Middle Shabelle province saying it could not keep them in the region as long as two of its aid workers were in captivity," Osman Haji Abdule, mayor of Jawhar district, told Reuters by telephone.

He said the charity's local staff were still at work.

Sources- the Latin Americanist, Reuters Africa, BBC News, Associated Press, AFP

Image- eitb.com