MOGADISHU, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) — Kidnapers of three foreign aid workers abducted last month from Kenyan border town of Mandera on Monday demanded unspecified ransom for the release of the hostages, local radio reports said.
The three hostages, an American, a Zimbabwean and a Pakistani, were seized in mid July in a cross-border raid by local Somali militia group into the Kenyan border town of Mandera where the three were working for the Action Against Hunger (ACF) aid agency.
“We are stating that the foreigners are in our hands and are in good health,” Shabelle radio in Mogadishu quoted an unidentified caller claiming to be spokesman for the group holding the foreign hostages.
The caller demanded that a ransom, whose amount he did not specify, be paid to his group for the releases of the hostages who he said were being held “somewhere inside Somalia.”
He argued his group was not affiliated to any political or insurgent movement in Somalia where freelance groups are often behind the kidnapping of foreigners.
Payment of ransom money is the main demand of the hostage takers who usually treat their hostages well in expectation of the ransom payout that often culminates in the hostage-taking.
Two French security advisers for the Somali government forces were also abducted last month from their hotel rooms in the south of the Somali capital Mogadishu.
Initial reports indicated the French nationals were journalists but it later emerged that they were security consultants.
The two hostages were taken by unknown gunmen who reportedly handed them over to insurgent groups in Somalia.
Several other foreign as well as Somali hostages, including journalists and aid workers, are still being held in the war torn country by local armed groups who demand payment of ransom for their release.
IRIN NEWS/SOMALIA