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Sunday, August 24, 2008

Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Abducted at Gunpoint in Refugee Camp near Mogadishu


Two freelance journalists one from Alberta, Canada named Amanda Lindhout, age 27, and one from Australia named Nigel has been abducted at gunpoint near the Somali capital of Mogadishu. Amanda's father who lives in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, Canada told Canadian reporters on Saturday that he was contacted by Foreign Affairs department to inform him of the Kidnapping.

According to Global National, a Canwest News Service group,who interviewed Amanda's father by a telephone, said the journalist arrived in Somalia with an Australian friend, the other journalist who was also kidnapped whom the Australian news media calls him only by Nigel.

Ms. Lindhout had being on tour through Africa to gather freelance reports which she planned to sell to Canadian broadcasters and a French television network. Amanda's mission in Somalia was to report on the deteriorating security situtaion as well as the food shortages affecting 2.6 million displaced people.

A Somali translator and two bodyguards set off with the journalists on Saturday morning for a location near Elasha, 18 kilometres south of the capital, and it is believed the group was in a vehicle that was stopped by gunmen as it travelled to a refugee camp near Elasha,

Earlier Saturday, Reuters reported that an unnamed Canadian and an Australian reporter had been abducted on their way to a displaced persons camp. “They left us this morning to visit internally displaced camps on the outskirts of Mogadishu,” said Mohamed Ajos, the head of security at Mogadishu’s Shamo Hotel, where the pair had been staying. “Now they are nowhere to be found. They were accompanied by a Somali translator and were to visit parts of Lower Shabelle region.”

The Canadian Foreign Affairs Department in Ottawa issued a travel advisory on July 11 warning all Canadians in Somalia to leave the country indicating that, “there is a high security threat in Somalia. Killings and kidnappings continue to occur in all areas of the country and there have been targeted assassinations of foreigners, including journalists, human rights activists, and humanitarian workers.”
Somali blogs and news will keep you posted on any additional reports coming of out of Mogadishu about this story.

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