Gunmen stormed an airstrip in central Somalia today, kidnapping a group of foreign and local aid workers, witnesses and humanitarian sources said.
Six foreigners -- two Kenyans, two French, a Bulgarian and a Belgian -- were among those seized, a spokesman for the European Commission said in Brussels.
The kidnappings near Dusamareb town were the latest in a series of abductions of humanitarian workers this year in the lawless Horn of Africa nation.
"Heavily armed men with three battle-wagons and three small cars kidnapped the foreigners who landed a plane, and also some people waiting for them at the airstrip," said a local resident, Farah Osman.
Aid workers have been increasingly targeted this year for assassination and kidnap in Somalia, where Islamist insurgents are fighting the government and its Ethiopian military allies.
Suspicion generally falls on clan militia and the insurgents. But the Islamists accuse President Abdullahi Yusuf's government of staging such attacks to blacken their name.
French-based Action Contre La Faim (ACF) charity said four of its people were taken, but did not give their nationalities.
"Two Kenyan pilots and four other foreigners working for ACF were kidnapped," one local charity worker, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. "They are two French ladies, a Belgian man and a Bulgarian lady."
"It was a flight under contract to the EU Commission. It was an Action Contre la Faim operation," the European Commission spokesman said.
He was unable to confirm previous indications received by the EU executive that the workers were linked to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Mired in anarchy and awash with weapons since the 1991 overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, south and central Somalia is off-limits for all but a small band of foreign aid workers, and local staff face extreme risks by association.
Kidnapping can be a lucrative business in Somalia, with hostages generally treated well in anticipation of a ransom.
Gunmen are still holding hostage two Italians, one Kenyan and a Briton -- plus three locals -- abducted in April and May.
Two other foreign aid workers for Medecins du Monde, of unknown nationality, are still being held after being captured in east Ethiopia and taken over the border in September.
The kidnappings and attacks are crippling the operations of aid agencies at a time when UN officials say Somalia ranks as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises along with Sudan's Darfur region, Congo, Iraq and Afghanistan.
More than 1 million of Somalia's 9 million people live as internal refugees, and their plight has been worsened by record food prices and drought.
Reuters