Aid workers freed from long hostage ordeal in Somalia

After being held hostage for nine months, the two French women and two men from Belgium and Bulgaria, who had worked for French charity ACF (Action Against Hunger) together with two abducted Kenyan pilots boarded a plane and were flown out of Somalia last week.

Somali gunmen seized the four aid workers in November 2008 along with the two pilots who had flown them to an area bordering Ethiopia
Back then witnesses said that the aid workers were being escorted by five or six security guards as they tried to board a plane chartered by the European Commission but they were easily overpowered by about 20 heavily armed men.

President Nicolas Sarkozy said he was pleased and relieved by the news and offered “his warmest congratulations to all those whose involvement brought an end to the hostage-taking," a statement said.

There was no immediate information on the circumstances of the hostages' release.

The release of the aid workers came as France was grappling with a separate hostage case involving two French intelligence agents seized last month from their hotel room in Mogadishu. The Shebab, an Al Qaeda-inspired militia, said last month that the two men would be tried under Sharia law, for "spying and entering Somalia to assist the enemy of Allah."

Armed Somali gangs have carried out scores of kidnappings in recent months, often targeting foreigners or Somalis working with international organisations to demand ransoms.

The relentless violence and insecurity have made Somalia one of the most dangerous places in the world for foreign workers.

Three further ACF workers, abducted from Kenya into Somalia still await their release.

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