UN aid workers seized in Somalia

Mogadishu, 16 March-(ANA)-Gunmen in southern Somalia have kidnapped four UN aid workers, three of them foreigners, reports say.

They are said to have been seized in their car while travelling to the airstrip near Wajid, 340km (210 miles) north-west of the capital Mogadishu.

They were on a stopover between Puntland in northern Somalia and their destination of Kenya, a UN official told AFP news agency.

The nationalities of the three foreign aid workers have not been released. .

The UN says 35 aid workers were killed in 2008 and 26 abducted in 2008, the AP news agency reports.

Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991.

Islamist insurgents are in control of most of southern Somalia.

Puntland is a semi-autonomous region, which has been relatively stable. (ANA)

FA/ANA/16 March 2009---