British aid worker freed in Somalia

Somali gunmen who last week abducted a Zimbabwean working for British charity Save the Children released him early Wednesday.

Al Shebab militants training near Mogadishu AFP

Frans Barnard, a security expert, was taken hostage along with his Somali fixer, who was freed unharmed the day after their capture.

Witnesses and colleagues said heavily-armed men in three vehicles burst into a guesthouse housing aid workers from several organisations in the Adado region on Thursday night. Security guards put up no resistance and no shots were exchanged.

Save the Children earlier said the charity had been assessing the possibility of establishing a relief programme for malnourished children and their families in the area.

Local elders involved in negotiations leading to Barnard's release said the kidnappers were paid 100,000 dollars (72,000 euros).

"The gunmen asked for 150,000 dollars to free the hostage but they were only paid 100,000," one of the negotiators said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The hostage was initially reported to have dual Zimbabwean-British nationality but this has not been confirmed.

Nearly two decades of conflict has ruined the livelihoods of many Somalis, forcing them to camps for the displaced where they depend on humanitarian aid.

But several relief organisations have been forced out of the war-wracked country by the Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab insurgents who control large swathes of southern and central Somalia.

The Western-backed transitional government of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has been unable to exert nationwide authority and has been boxed into a few streets in the capital Mogadishu by relentless Shebab attacks.