Somali kidnappers free six foreigners

By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali kidnappers released on Tuesday six foreigners seized in November in central Somalia, an airport official said.

The six -- two Kenyans, two French, a Bulgarian and a Belgian -- were at Mogadishu airport where a special plane was waiting to fly them out. Their destination was not immediately clear.

"I understand $3 million in ransom was paid to release the six aid workers kidnapped from our region," local elder Farah Hussein told Reuters by phone from Gurael in central Somalia. The ransom amount could not be independently confirmed.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed the release.

"The president is overjoyed and very relieved over the announcement that four members of the NGO "Action Contre la Faim," have been freed after being held hostage in Somalia for nine months," a statement from the presidency said.

The statement said that Sarkozy had reaffirmed his determination to fight against such acts with international partners.

Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for aid workers, who have been the targets of assassinations and kidnappings during a two-year insurgency led by Islamist militants against the government and foreign backers.

But captives are rarely harmed and are usually and set free once a ransom is paid.

Four of the foreigners were aid workers with Action Contre La Faim (Action Against Hunger), and two were the Kenyan pilots who flew them to an airstrip in central Somalia where they were kidnapped by armed men in three battle wagons and three small cars.

Airport workers told Reuters the former hostages were undergoing medical checkups before departing in a waiting plane.

President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a moderate Islamist elected earlier this year in the 15th attempt to form a central government, is struggling to deal with various insurgent groups who control swathes of territory.

More than a million Somalis have been uprooted from their homes and a third of the population depends on food aid, since the fighting.