2 kidnapped Spanish aid workers released in Somalia

Kidnappers in southern Somalia have freed two aid workers of the Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) who were abducted in 2011 from a refugee camp in northern Kenya, MSF said Thursday in a statement. "It is with great relief that Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) confirms that Montserrat Serra and Blanca Thiebaut, abducted from the Dadaab refugee camp, in Kenya, on October 13, 2011, have been released," the statement said. "Both are safe and healthy and keen to join their loved ones as soon as possible. MSF will offer continued support to Mone and Blanca and their families," it said. "As we are still working on the return of the two girls to their homes, we ask you to respect their need for privacy at this time," it added. The two Spanish women, Serra, 42, from Girona (Palafrugell), and Thiebaut, 32, from Madrid, were abducted from the world's largest refugee camp and then taken across the border into Somalia. MSF has been working in Somalia continuously since 1991, and currently operates 13 projects in the country, including medical activities related to the ongoing emergency, vaccination campaigns, as well as nutritional interventions. MSF also assists Somali refugees in camps in Dadaab, Kenya and Dolo Ado, Ethiopia. The international medical charity thanked those who were involved in securing the release of the two women. The MSF has strongly condemned this attack on humanitarian workers who were in Dadaab offering lifesaving medical assistance to thousands of refugees. Since Kenya sent troops across the border into Somalia in October 2011, northern and parts of eastern Kenya have been hit by a series of blasts, many targeting local security forces and humanitarian workers. Several attacks, believed to have been carried out by Al Shabaab, occurred in Mandera, Wajir, and Garissa and Dadaab districts of northern Kenya, even as the military reports gains against the Islamist group by capturing their military bases and killing scores of them. Kenyan soldiers, who have since joined the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), are hunting down the Al Shabaab militants inside Somalia to stop further incursions into Kenya.