Somali kidnappings increase

2008-06-28 17:14

Mogadishu, Somalia - Gunmen in Somalia kidnapped three people - a Swede, a Dane and a Somali - working with a UN programme to clear landmines in the volatile East African country, officials and residents said.

The gunmen abducted them in the town of Hudur, which is in the southwestern Bakol region, about 290km northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, authorities said.

Five Somali soldiers were wounded during the kidnapping, Bakol Deputy Governor Sheik Hassan Ibrahim said. He said the three worked with a UN programme to clear land mines.

The UN Development Programme, which manages such programmes in Somalia, declined to comment.

Conflicting reports

Residents said the gunmen were Islamic insurgents and that they had taken over the town. But officials disputed that version, saying the gunmen were unidentified and they had not seized Hudur.

Ibrahim said Somali government soldiers were patrolling the town's streets.

Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Andre Mkandawire said the two kidnapped foreigners were a Swede and a Dane, but he could not immediately provide further details.

A resident in Hudur, radio operator Mohamed Adawe, said the Swede and Dane arrived in the town on Friday. Another resident, Abdi Kerow, said one person was killed and five others wounded in battles between the suspected insurgents and government soldiers.

Kidnappings have been on the rise in Somalia, which has not had a functioning government for more than 15 years.

In the past week alone, five other people have been abducted. A German couple, their son and a French yacht captain were kidnapped Monday off the Gulf of Aden and pirates were demanding a $1m ransom. A Somali employee of the UN refugee agency was taken June 21 outside Mogadishu.

In central Somalia, meanwhile, Islamic insurgents captured the strategic town of Belet Weyne on Saturday, residents said.

Belet Weyne resident Omar Kiyow said that the insurgents did not fire a shot because Ethiopian troops who had been temporarily stationed there had left and there were Somali soldiers in the town.

In recent months, Islamic insurgents have briefly seized control of a handful of towns in central and southern Somalia, including Hudur and Belet Weyne. The attacks are usually seen as a show of strength rather than a strategy to reclaim territory they lost in December 2006 when Ethiopian troops entered Somalia to bolster the weak transitional government.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since 1991, when warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and turned on each other.

- AP