Mogadishu: Gunmen in Somalia kidnapped a local United Nations employee who was working with the UN demining agency Mine Action, on Sunday.
Said Moalim Bashir, a public liaison officer for the agency, was captured while travelling to Mogadishu from Teredishe, a densely populated area outside the capital where thousands of displaced families live.
"We got the information regarding his kidnap today (Sunday) after his driver, who was apparently held with him was released," a local Mine Action official said. "We don't know his whereabouts but we have confirmed he was taken hostage by gunmen.”
Somalia's Islamist Shebab insurgents banned the operations of Mine Action in southern Somalia in December 2009, accusing the organisation of disturbing the peace in the country.
Unknown hooded gunmen stopped Bashir's car near a refugee camp. They later released his driver, said a relative.
"They intercepted his car and forced the driver to turn the vehicle from its direction, taking Bashir with them, and no one knows his fate so far," relative Abdukar Mohamed said.
"The kidnappers did not make any contact yet and they switched his phone off. We are very worried about his situation," he said.
Kidnappings, especially of foreign nationals, are rampant in Somalia, a Horn of Africa country ravaged by cycles of devastating violence and lawlessness and struggling to withstand attacks by Islamist insurgents.
