Two foreign journalists kidnapped in Somalia
By DPA, IANSTuesday, July 14, 2009
NAIROBI/MOGADISHU - Two foreign journalists were kidnapped by armed men in the Somalian capital Mogadishu Tuesday, witnesses said.
According to eyewitnesses, some armed men wearing police uniforms entered a hotel in an Islamist-rebel controlled part of the city and took two men away.
No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, and no official confirmation of the two men’s identity has been made.
Somali news agency Somina reported later that the two men had registered at the hotel as being French journalists.
“I saw heavily armed men enter the hotel at about 12 this morning and forcibly take away two foreign men,” a shopkeeper near the hotel told DPA.
This year alone, five journalists have been killed in Somalia, and many have been injured trying to cover the conflict there.
A Canadian journalist and an Australian photographer are still missing following their abduction last August.
Intense fighting between insurgent groups and government forces started again in early May in Somalia, a country that has not had a strong central government in nearly two decades.
