By Abdi Mohamed and Ibrahim Mohamed
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali gunmen have kidnapped twolocal workers with an Italian charity in the latest attack onhumanitarian staff in the Horn of Africa nation, locals andforeign aid sources said on Tuesday.
About a dozen men with rifles stopped the Somalis on theirway to Mogadishu on Monday and turned their two cars into bushnear Afgooye, west of the capital, witnesses said.
"I could see the two cars marked 'WFL' being hijacked,"bus-driver Hassan Osman said.
Regional governor Abdiqadir Sheikh confirmed that a Somaliman and a woman -- whom he identified as working for Italiannon-governmental organisation Water For Life -- went missing asthey were travelling to Mogadishu.
"They are nowhere to be found now ... they must have beenkidnapped," he told Reuters.
Suspicion for kidnappings generally falls on clan militiaand Islamist insurgents who are fighting the Somali governmentand their Ethiopian military allies.
Gunmen are still holding hostage four foreign aid workers-- two Italians, a Kenyan, a Briton -- and another threeSomalis abducted in April and May.
Two U.N. workers from Sweden and Denmark were briefly takenon Saturday in south Somalia, until local elders and colleaguesnegotiates their release with Islamists.
Mired in anarchy and awash with weapons since the 1991overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, south Somalia isoff-limits for all but a small band of foreign aid workers, andlocal staff face extreme risks by association.
Sheikh, the Lower Shabelle region governor, said thekidnapped Somali pair had been due to fly to Italy on Tuesday.
The WFL charity trains Somali geologists.
Kidnapping is lucrative business in Somalia, with hostagesgenerally treated well in anticipation of a large ransom.
But the attacks are hampering the operations of aidagencies at a time when U.N. officials say Somalia ranks as oneof the world's worst humanitarian crises along with Sudan'sDarfur region, Congo, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Over 1 million of Somalia's 9 million people live asinternal refugees, and their plight has been worsened by recordfood prices, hyper-inflation and drought.
The insurgency has killed 2,136 civilians so far this year,bringing the death-toll since it began in early 2007 to 8,636,according to a local human rights group.
(Additional reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu andSilvia Aloisi in Rome; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne)
(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say onthe top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com)
