• SEARCH SOMALINET.COM
• SEARCH DIRECTORY

Enter your search terms Submit search form   Web www.somalinet.com

Search:
FULL DIRECTORY SEARCH

SomaliNet  News    English  Somalia

Somalia: Italians kidnapped in Somalia freed- Italy's foreign minister Wed. August 06, 2008 02:12 am.- By Bonny Apunyu. - (SomaliNet) Months after men armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades surrounded the aid workers' house and took them away in blindfolds, two Italians kidnapped in Somalia have been released, Italy's foreign minister said Tuesday. The pair of Italains, Iolanda Occhipinti and Giuliano Paganini are in good condition and were on plane headed for Nairobi, Kenya, Italy's foreign minister Franco Frattini told parliament. "I spoke to my mother on the phone," Occhipinti's son Gianni Tumino was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency. "She told me she is well." Gunmen seized the Italian man and woman along with a Somali colleague in an attack May 21 in Awdhigle, a southern Somalian village about 45 miles south of the capital, Mogadishu. It was not immediately known whether the Somali hostage had been freed. Aid workers have faced increasing danger in Somalia this year. So far this year, 11 aid workers, including two foreigners, have been killed. At least four aid workers have been kidnapped recently. It is unclear who is behind the violence, as many factions in Somalia's chaotic war stand to benefit from them. Meanwhile, powerful local leaders have previously complained that aid workers are feeding Islamic insurgents who had sworn to fight the government. Insurgents have also targeted Somalis affiliated with foreign organizations in the past. The problem has been compounded by the growth of professional kidnapping rings, who security experts say have been encouraged by the large ransoms paid by foreigners to release ships taken by pirates. The Islamists vowed to fight an Iraq-style insurgency against the government and its Ethiopian allies in December 2006, after Ethiopian troops dislodged the Islamists from the capital and much of the territory in southern Somalia they had held for six months. Thousands of civilians have been killed in the fighting and hundreds of thousands have fled the capital. Over 2 million people in the arid, impoverished country are dependent on food aid. Control of aid, used to buy loyalty from militiamen, has often provoked fighting among Somalia's powerful clan-based warlords since they toppled a socialist dictator in 1991. The country has not had a functioning government since then.-AP News Category: Somalia Latest Headlines Latest News South Korea considering dispatching navy ship to wa... Somalia: Armed Ethiopian troops leave southwestern ... PRESS RELEASE: Amnesty International speaks on displ... Somalia: Pirates attack six more ships off of Somal... Uganda: ICC renews calls for arrest of LRA chie... Somalia: Aid agencies welcome in central Somalia- I... U.S Elections: Obama widens leading margins over McCa... Zimbabwe: Opposition, ruling party fail to meet ZAMBIA: NO TRAVEL ALERTS FOLLOWING DEADLY DIESEASE Somalia: Over 50 aid agencies criticize humanitari... More News...