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MSF demands access to hostages
29/12/2007 08:57 - (SA)
Nairobi - Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) on Friday demanded the right to check the health condition of two of its employees kidnapped in northern Somalia earlier this week.
"Medecins Sans Frontieres requests access to its two expatriates with an MSF ambulance in order to check their health," said the medical charity.
On Wednesday, gunmen abducted Mercedes Garcia and Pilar Bauza, a Spanish doctor and an Argentinian nurse, in Bosasso, the main port in the breakaway state of Puntland that abutted the Gulf of Aden.
MSF said it was engaged in contacts with the local authorities as well as Spain's ambassador to Kenya, who arrived in Bosasso on Thursday to mediate the two women's release.
After the initial capture, Puntland police hunted down the kidnappers, sparking an exchange of fire, which resulted in the arrest of two suspects.
The Puntland government said little information was available on the fate of the hostages as the kidnappers had sought refuge in a mountainous area.
On December 24, a gang of kidnappers released a French cameraman who was held for eight days in the same area.
In recent weeks, foreign media and aid organisations had increasingly been exposing the trade of smugglers taking refugees across the Gulf of Aden to the Arabian peninsula.
Hundreds of migrants died each year while attempting the crossing, either because their rickety boats capsize or as a result of exhaustion, disease or mistreatment by the smugglers.
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