Aid workers kidnapped from Kenya’s Dadaab camp near Somalia

A Kenyan driver has been killed and four foreign aid workers kidnapped at a refugee camp in Kenya close to the border with Somalia, police say.

Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya is home to more than 450,000 Somalis. Photo: BBC/AFP. Get Somali news around the world at www.kismaayodaily.com

The foreigners, from Canada, Norway, Pakistan and the Philippines, worked for
the Norwegian Refugee Council.

They were travelling in a convoy when they were ambushed by gunmen in Dadaab,
which houses more than 450,000 Somalis.

Several aid workers have been kidnapped from Dadaab in the last year and many
groups have withdrawn from the camp.

‘Helicopter search’

The region’s deputy police chief, Philip Ndolo, said two vehicles in the
convoy had come under attack – and one had managed to get away.

He told the AFP news agency that the driver of the second vehicle was shot by
a gunman and died while receiving treatment at hospital, correcting earlier
reports that he had also been kidnapped.

Two other Kenyans were also shot, another driver and a contractor for the
Norwegian Refugee Council, Reuters news agency reports Mr Ndolo as saying.

A spokesman for the Norwegian Refugee Council said its secretary general,
Elizabeth Rasmussen, was in the convoy that came under attack, but she had
escaped unharmed.

Somalia has had no effective central government since 1991, and has been
wracked by fighting ever since – a situation that has allowed piracy and
lawlessness to flourish.

Islamists from the al-Qaeda-linked group al-Shabab control large swathes of
the country.

“We suspect this could be the work of al-Shabab sympathisers,” Mr Ndolo told
Reuters.

Kenyan army spokesman Cyrus Oguna told AFP that the seized vehicle had been
found abandoned about 30km (18 miles) from Daadab and it was believed the
captives and their abductors were still inside Kenya, proceeding on foot.

“We have dispatched military helicopters to pursue the kidnappers,” he
said.

Last October, Kenyan troops entered Somalia in pursuit of al-Shabab militants
accused of being behind various kidnappings on Kenyan soil and of destabilising
the border region.

Earlier that month, two Spanish doctors working for the medical charity
Medecins Sans Frontieres were kidnapped from Dadaab and are still being held
hostage.

source: (BBC).