Somali gunmen kidnap two Western journalists: residents

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen kidnapped two Western journalists on Saturday near Somalia's capital Mogadishu, residents and a security source said.

The pair, believed to be an Australian man and Canadian woman, were apparently seized during a visit to camps for displaced civilians at Elasha, south of the city.

"We heard that unknown gunmen abducted two foreign journalists, a white man and a white woman," Fatuma Ali, a primary school teacher in Elasha, told Reuters by telephone.

Mohamed Ajos, head of security at Mogadishu's Shamo Hotel, said the pair had been staying there.

"They left us this morning to visit internally displaced camps on the outskirts of Mogadishu," he told Reuters.

"Now they are nowhere to be found. They were accompanied by a Somali translator and were to visit parts of Lower Shabelle region. They are believed to have been kidnapped."

Ajos and another source at the hotel said the pair were freelance journalists and named them as Nigel, a 27-year-old Australian, and Amanda, 26, a Canadian, whose surname Canada's Global Television network gave as Lindhout, saying she was a freelance journalist from Sylvan Lake, Alberta.

Gun-point abductions are common in the lawless Horn of Africa nation, where Islamist insurgents have been fighting the interim government and its Ethiopian military allies since the start of last year.

The latest reported incident came a day after al-Shabaab rebels seized the strategic southern port of Kismayu from a pro-government clan militia in fighting that killed at least 70 people.

(Writing by Daniel Wallis; editing by Myra MacDonald)