Tuesday
July 3, 2012
July 3, 2012
News
Four foreign aid workers working for the Norwegian Refugee Council
arrive at Wilson Airport, Nairobi, after they had been freed by a joint
force of Somalia TFG and Kenya Defence Forces on July 2, 2012. PHOTO /
SALATON NJAU
By PATRICK MAYOYO pmayoyo@ke.nationmedia.com AND VALENTINE OBARA vobara@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Monday, July 2 2012 at 10:00
Posted Monday, July 2 2012 at 10:00
Their capture by militants on Friday threw the Kenya
Defence Forces (KDF) and their Somali Transitional Federal Government
counterparts into a major security spin.
Both KDF and TFG mounted ground and air searches
for the four foreign aid workers from Canada, Norway, the Philippines
and Pakistan, who were seized from the Dabaab Refugee Camp under a hail
of bullets. Their kidnappers were suspected to be Al-Qaeda linked
Al-Shabaab militants.
The two men and two women who work with the
Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) were snatched by their kidnappers in the
presence of NRC secretary-general Elisabeth Rasmusson. A Kenyan driver
was killed and two others were wounded during Friday’s attack.
But after nearly two days of intense search, the
KDF and TFG forces cornered the kidnappers 30 kilometres north of Dobley
inside Somalia.
On Monday, the military chopper carrying the four
NRC workers touched down at the Wilson Airport in Nairobi at 3pm, amid
tight security.
One among the two men had a bandaged foot and
walked with a limp, with an army officer who requested anonymity
disclosing that he had suffered gunshot wounds during the kidnapping.
The four were barred from speaking to the press,
with a contingent of the military personnel and security officials from
their embassies keeping journalists at bay.
Following the intervention of Deputy Speaker Farah
Maalim who was among those at the airport to receive them, one of them,
Ms Qurat-Ul-Ain Sadazai, only expressed their joy to have been rescued
alive.
“We are happy to be alive, and we are happy to be back,”
she said. The four flew in the helicopter together with armed military
personnel, and were whisked off to an undisclosed destination after a
short briefing from the delegation that received them.
Besides the Deputy Speaker, embassy officials from
Norway and Canada and NRC officials were at the airport. According to
KDF spokesman Colonel Cyrus Oguna, KDF and TFG forces came across the
kidnappers on Sunday evening.
“They had car-jacked another vehicle, which they
were using when they were intercepted by our forces. There was a
gun-fight. One of the kidnappers was killed while two others escaped,”
he said.
Col Oguna said the rescue of the aid workers
followed an intensified search that included an aerial operation that
included both military helicopters and other aircraft, while vehicles
and troops on foot searched the remote scrubland on either side of the
porous border with Somalia.
Col Oguna said the rescued workers were taken to a
medical facility in Dobley for examination and treatment before
arrangements were made to fly them to Kenya.
“They are exhausted, they have walked far and have
blisters, and one of the aid workers was shot in the leg, but otherwise
they are in good health,” Col Oguna said.
Since Kenya troops crossed into Somalia in October
to fight the Al-Shabaab, the Islamist insurgents have been behind a
series of grenade and improvised device attacks in Kenya.
A number of kidnapping have also been reported in
towns along the Kenya-Somali border. This kidnapping was the latest in a
series of attacks in Dadaab, where gunmen last October seized two
Spaniards working for Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without
Borders). They are still being held hostage in Somalia.
The abduction of the Spaniards was one of the
incidents that spurred Kenya to send troops and tanks into Somalia to
fight the hardline Al-Shabaab that Nairobi blames for abductions and
cross-border raids.
The decision to allow KDF to move into Somalia came
after the kidnapping of Ms Judith Tebbut, a Briton, in Lamu Island last
year. Ms Tebbut was held in captive for six months before being
released.
Following the Friday kidnap, Kenyan security forces scrambled
military helicopters and aircraft after gunmen attacked the NRC convoy
at around midday in Dadaab, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Somalia,
killing a Kenyan driver and wounding two others.
However, the aid workers’ vehicle seized by the
gunmen was found abandoned a few hours after the attack, raising fears
that the gang had escaped with the hostages through the remote
scrubland.
Read more:http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Kidnapped+aid+workers+rescued+in+Somalia/-/1056/1441862/-/item/1/-/12oa0uo/-/index.html 
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