MOGADISHU - Kidnappers in Somalia’s northern Puntland region on Wednesday freed two female aid workers from the Spanish branch of Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), Puntland’s trade minister said. ‘The two MSF workers have been released by their abductors and they are now in a hotel in Bosasso,’ Trade Minister Abdisamad Yusuf Abwan told Reuters. Spanish doctor Mercedes Garcia and Argentinian nurse Pilar Bauza Moreno were seized by gunmen in Bosasso, a northern Somali port, on Dec. 26 while driving to a hospital in the semi-autonomous region.It was not immediately clear if a ransom demand had been met. Somali kidnappers generally do not harm their victims, instead treating them as an investment which can pay off in the form of ransom.
MSF Spain on Tuesday withdrew its foreign staff from southern Somalia as a precaution after the abductions in Puntland, which used to enjoy a reputation for relative stability compared to the rest of the anarchic Horn of Africa nation.