Gunmen have kidnapped two female Spanish aid workers and shot their driver in a refugee camp in northern Kenya in the latest attack on foreigners close to the Somali border.
The women work for Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), which runs health centres for the more than 400,000 Somali refugees in the sprawling Dadaab refugee settlement, the world's largest.
The kidnappers struck at about 1.15pm in Ifo camp, wounding the Kenyan driver before escaping in the MSF four-wheel drive with the two women. The vehicle was seen heading in the direction of Somalia, 50 miles away.
Kenyan police said they had launched a manhunt and sealed the border to prevent the kidnappers crossing. The border is in fact porous and impossible to close off.
The kidnapping comes weeks after Somali gunmen abducted a British woman and a French woman from beach resorts in separate incidents along the northern Kenyan coast. Both women are being held hostage in Somalia. Security experts believe that the attacks are an extension of the sea piracy that has netted Somali gangsters tens of millions of dollars in ransom a year.
MSF confirmed the attack on its staff in Dadaab. "One driver was injured; he is currently in hospital and is stable. Two international staff are missing. A crisis team has been set up to deal with the incident," it said.
The Spanish foreign ministry confirmed the nationality and gender of the kidnap victims. Osman Bare, a Somali refugee who works as a translator in Dadaab, said local reports suggested three gunmen had ambushed the MSF vehicle in a new section of Ifo camp that had not yet been populated. The driver was shot in the neck, Bare said.
"The armed guys escaped towards Somalia. All the refugees are talking about this attack and some are fearing for their lives," Bare said.
The kidnapping was not the first attack in Dadaab. Last month a Kenyan driver for the international charity Care was abducted in the refugee settlement. Neither he nor his vehicle have been seen since.
The latest kidnapping is likely to have an impact on humanitarian work in Dadaab. Oxfam said it had temporarily suspended work in the camps until the weekend, with staff staying within a secure compound until security conditions have been reassessed.
Established in 1991, Dadaab has had a huge surge in arrivals this year due to fighting in Somalia as well as a famine that has cost tens of thousands of lives.
The NGO Safety Programme, which advises charities on security in Somalia, said the armed groups responsible for the recent kidnappings appeared to be operating out of the Lower Juba region of Somalia. The al-Shabaab Islamist movement to overthrow the government in Somalia may be complicit.
"It is also likely that the AS [Shabaab] administration in Kismayo is at least informed of the intended actions of the perpetrators, allows them to conducts the actions and could maybe benefit from them," the NGO Safety Programme said in a statement to aid agencies following Thursday's kidnapping.
