Somalia seeking Kenyan help to save kidnapped nuns

Somali gunmen who kidnapped two Italian nuns from a Kenyan border town were taking them deeper into Somalia yesterday, a local Somali government official said, and he appealed to Kenya to help track them down.

The pair were seized in a pre-dawn raid on Monday by scores of attackers who stormed the small town of El Wak, firing wildly and launching a rocket at a Kenyan police post before escaping back across the border in hijacked vehicles.

The abduction underlined the risks in the Horn of Africa country for humanitarian workers who have increasingly been targeted this year in kidnappings and killings usually blamed on Islamist rebels, clan militia or criminal gangs.

"We've been searching for the nuns and the bandits since last night and there's no trace of them," Hussein Sheikh Hassan, administrator of El Wak district in Somalia, told Reuters. He said he believed the kidnappers were heading towards Garbahaarey, about 175 kilometres northeast of El Wak town.

"We are finding it very difficult to trail them. We ask Kenya's government to cooperate and help us coordinate the search... We'll welcome any Kenyan delegation, whether security or elders, so as to rescue the nuns and recover the cars."