Unidentified Somali gunmen kidnapped two Western nuns following a pre-dawn cross-border raid on a Catholic church in neighboring Kenya, a local government official said.
The administration of the region of Gedo in southwestern Somalia is investigating the incident, said Sheikh Hassan Hussein, the governor of Gedo, in a mobile-phone interview today. The whereabouts of the two nuns isn't known, he said.
``We have information that the kidnappers used vehicles to take these two Western Catholic nuns into Somali territory,'' he said. He said he didn't have any further information.
Yahoo News! has more:
Aden Mohamed Isaqm, a local aid worker, said six gunmen hurled a hand grenade and fired a rocket at Kenyan police just after dawn prayers before seizing the nuns from the local church and driving toward the border.
The Catholic church has been the target of frequent attacks in Somalia, parts of which were once colonized by Italy. In 2005, insurgents dug up remains in an Italian cemetery where around 3,000 people were buried, and threw them into the sea. The following year an Italian nun working in a hospital in the capital was shot dead. Earlier this year, residents of the southern town of Kismayo began destroying an abandoned Catholic church after the town was taken by Islamic extremists.
Cross-posted in Spanish Pundit (in Spanish).
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