Somali aid workers kidnapped

Six aid workers were kidnapped in Somalia today.

Paris-based Action Against Hunger said four non-Somali workers and two drivers were taken in the town of Dhusamareb, about 360 miles north of the capital, Mogadishu.

The group did not specify the nationalities of any of those taken or provide any other details about the circumstances of the kidnapping.

Action Against Hunger has 14 foreign workers and 219 local employees in Somalia.

They mostly conduct projects aimed at promoting health and nutrition and access to clean water. The group has been in the troubled east African nation since 1992.

Foreigners, journalists and humanitarian workers are frequently abducted for ransoms in Somalia. The country has not had an effective central government since 1991, leaving it in the grip of violence and anarchy.

In August, two of Action Against Hunger's workers in Afghanistan were kidnapped at gunpoint and held for two weeks before being released, unharmed. In response to the kidnappings, the group temporarily suspended its activities in the Central Asian nation.