Update: Somali Gunmen Free Humanitarian Workers
April 29, 2009
Two European aid workers held hostage in Somalia for nine days were released without ransom yesterday, according to Reuters.
The two Doctors Without Borders staff members, a Belgian doctor and a Dutch nurse, had been abducted by Somali gunmen April 19 from the central region of Bokol, where they were conducting a nutrition study.
The kidnappers had demanded as much as $4-million, but a leader of the al Shabaab rebel group that controls the area — which had pledged to free the hostages by force if negotiations failed — said the aid workers were freed without conditions.
