Kidnappers demand ransom

Kenyan education ministry officials near the border are demanding a ransom for their release, Kenyan police said on Thursday. Witnesses initially said the 5 were snatched on Wednesday in the Mandera region on the Kenyan side of the border but officials said on Thursday that they had crossed into neighbouring southern Somalia when they were kidnapped. "They have not stated any amount yet, but they have insisted they want money," a police official said on condition of anonymity, quoting information received by emissaries dispatched to the area to secure a release. Two prominent elders from the Mandera region, inhabited mainly by Somali-ethnic Kenyans, were sent across the border to mediate with the Islamist administration in the village of Bulohawo, where the group is being held. "It is true that Kenyan nationals were captured in Bulohawo by the security forces after they crossed the border and illegally entered the town," local district commissioner Ahmed Mohammed Burkus said.
Dangerous group "Their case is being investigated so far but I insist that they were not kidnapped inside Kenya," said Burkus, reached in Bulohawo by phone. "The 5 had crossed the border from Mandera town to go to the border village of Bulohawo inside Somalia for shopping," Kenyan police chief Mohammed Hussein Ali said in a statement..more..http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2491963,00.html