ROME — Two Italian nuns who were kidnapped in Kenya in November and taken into lawless Somalia were freed today, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said.
Gunmen kidnapped Maria Teresa Olivero, 60, and Caterina Giraudo, 67, on Nov. 10 in Kenya, where they worked in the northeastern town of El Wak, with the poor on hunger and health programs. They were taken across the desert border, about six miles away into Somalia.
The Italian Foreign Ministry, which first announced their release, did not immediately give details.
But Berlusconi told reporters when he arrived for a meeting with visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown that the two Roman Catholic nuns were well and in the Italian Embassy in Nairobi.
“Their morale is up,” he said.
Giraudo told Italy’s SKY TG24 TV that both she and Olivero were well. “We prayed a lot. This kept us going in an incredible way” while held captive.
The kidnapping “was very quick; it took a few minutes. They fired shots into the place where we were, grabbed us by the arm and made us run,” Giraudo said in a strong voice.
Witnesses at the time said the nuns were driven to the border in a convoy of three stolen vehicles after six gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons, hurled a grenade and fired a rock at Kenyan police.
The women belong to the Contemplative Missionary Movement of Father de Foucauld. The movement, founded in northern Italy in 1951, carries the name of French priest Charles de Foucauld, who worked as a missionary in Africa in the early 20th century.
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