Aid worker’s tale of swift rescue action

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Three of the Four foreign aid workers working for the Norwegian Refugee Council who were kidnapped in Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp with Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Farah Maalim(center behind) speak to the media at the Wilson Airport, Nairobi after they freed by Kenya Defence Forces, on July 2, 2012. Photo/SALATON NJAU 

By AGENCIES
Posted  Thursday, July 5  2012 at  23:30

IN SUMMARY

• Crack of gunshots echoed in the air for a nerve-racking five minutes as kidnapped four were resting after yet another gruelling night march

Details of how Kenya Defence Forces and their Somali Transitional Federal Government counterparts rescued four aid workers who had been captured by Somali militant group Al-Shabaab emerged on Thursday.

One of the four freed Norwegian Refugee Council workers, Ms Qurat Ul-Ain Sadozai, described the rescue as nerve-racking five minutes after days of high tension.

She said the rescue took place as they were resting after yet another gruelling night march. When the crack of gunshots echoed in the air, the kidnappers started running.

“We panicked,” Ms Sadozai, one of two Canadians freed in the operation, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail of Canada.

Huddled against the ground in a thorn-bush, Ms Sadozai said she wasn’t worried about being killed, as they had been treated comparatively well. Her main worry was that they could end up in the hands of a different kidnap group.

Armed men in fatigues

The aid workers kept their heads down for more than five minutes until about 20 armed men in fatigues appeared.

“The people who were rescuing us came in and said: ‘We are here to rescue you, don’t panic, don’t worry’,” Ms Sadozai recalled. “They shook our hands.”

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It was the end of a terrible experience that begun three days earlier, when the foreigners were carjacked while part of a convoy in Dadaab Refugee Camp. Taken at gunpoint were Ms Sadozai and fellow Canadian Steve Dennis, along with Norwegian Astrid Sehl and Filipino Glenn Costes. Fear was a constant as they were marched into Somalia.

They were keenly aware that kidnappings in the region can drag on for months, even years, and were trying to keep up their spirits. It helped that the group included experienced aid workers.

Ms Sadozai had previously worked in Pakistan for the Norwegian agency and Mr Dennis from the Toronto-area city of Richmond Hill, had worked for Médecins sans Frontières.

Ms Sadozai described a tough few days in captivity. The kidnappers were considerate, she said, even carrying the foreigners’ backpacks at times. But the terrain was rough, the night marches were long and windy and they were sleeping on the ground.

“We were well treated. We were not harassed or beaten or in any way injured. But of course, from walking, our feet are quite sore, because it was eight to 10 hours a day.”

They would start walking at about six in the evening and trek through the darkness, stopping for a few hours’ sleep on only one of the nights. In the morning they would be hidden in a thorny bush, where they would rest through the day on the ground, wrapped in their scarves.

They were rescued on the third day.

Ms Sadozai plans to return to the area after visiting her parents in Pakistan.

Following the kidnap, Kenyan security forces scrambled military helicopters and aircraft and mounted a massive search with the help of Somali soldiers.

The kidnap took place around midday last Friday in Dadaab, some 100 kilometres from Somalia. A Kenyan driver was killed and two others wounded.

The aid workers’ vehicle seized by the gunmen was found abandoned a few hours after the attack, raising fears that the gang had escaped with the hostages through the remote scrubland across the porous border into lawless Somalia.

According to Kenya Defence Forces spokesman Colonel Cyrus Oguna, the rescue of the aid workers followed an intensified search that included an aerial operation while vehicles and troops on foot searched the remote scrubland on either side of the border with Somalia.

Compiled by Patrick Mayoyo