afrol News, 14 July - Two foreign journalists have been abducted by unknown men from a hotel in the capital, Mogadishu today, local reports have said.

Reports said about 10 gunmen who pretended to be government security guards stormed into the hotel and took the two French journalists in the southern part of the capital. Mogadishu has been under siege in recent months, as the country’s radical Islamist group, stepped up its fight to reclaim the larger part of capital.

“Gunmen wearing Somali police uniforms turned up at the guest house, seized the two reporters and took them in a vehicle towards a part of the city run by insurgents,” witnesses said.

Somalia is one of the world's most dangerous places for journalists, both local and foreign, to operate and several have been kidnapped or killed.

Fighting in Somalia since Ethiopian troops ousted the Islamic Courts Union in late 2006 has killed at least 18,000 and send hundreds of thousands more fleeing from their homes.

The offensive got worse following the swearing in of the new President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in January, and departure of the Ethiopian troops in the Horn of Africa state early this year.

Some of the 4,300 African Union peacekeepers helped push back the insurgents but without much success.

The radical rebel group al-Shabab and its allies have been trying to topple the fragile UN-backed interim government, led by moderate Islamist President.

By staff writer

© afrol News

Related pages and feature

Current afrol News Top Stories