MOGADISHU, Somalia — Gunmen released two European aid workers today after holding them for nearly 10 days in southwestern Somalia.
Rab Dhure District Commissioner Sheik Mohamed Kheyr said elders and an extremist Islamic group helped secure the release of the Dutch and Belgian employees of Doctors without Borders. He said no ransom was paid.
Dutch national Kees Keus, 49, an aid worker with Doctors Without Borders, said soon after his release that he and 40-year-old Belgian Jorgen Stassijns were given food and water but that the circumstances of their captivity were “harsh.”
“I can’t say it was a nice experience. It’s not something I would recommend to anyone,” he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
The two had been kidnapped by masked gunmen on April 19 as they traveled through the Somali town of Rab Dhure.
Kheyr said elders and area residents had pressed for their release, saying the medical workers have been helping people in southwestern Somalia.
Sheik Aden Yare, a clan elder in the area who helped negotiate their release, said, “We negotiated with the captors and they accepted to release them after a long talk.”
Keus and Stassijns said they were being transported to another town where they will board a plane. They declined to discuss their captivity in detail until they are out of Somalia.
“I’m very happy and very pleased. It has been 10 difficult days,” Stassijns said.
A group of 25 masked gunmen had taken the aid workers hostage at a roadblock as they were traveling from Rab Dhure to another town in southern Somalia, Wajid. They were heavily armed and wore cloth wrapped around their lower faces, according to a witness in the town who saw the kidnapping.
Sixteen aid workers remain in captivity in Somalia, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Officials of the Belgian chapter of Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, say the group has operated medical aid projects in Somalia since 1991, but has never had problems with its staff. Its programs focus mainly on treating malnutrition and tuberculosis.
The capture of aid workers has long been a common problem in Somalia, often with demands for ransom. There is no indication that such kidnappings are linked to a recent surge in piracy off the Somalian coast. But the lucrative ransoms pirates have received from ship owners may have emphasized the value of foreigners as hostages in a country where nearly half the population is dependent on foreign aid.
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