Somali Government Denies Cuban Doctors Have Been Freed

The government of Somalia followed Cuba late Wednesday in denying that two Cuban doctors, abducted in northeast Kenya in April last year, had been released

Mogadishu (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 8th Oct, 2020 ) :The government of Somalia followed Cuba late Wednesday in denying that two Cuban doctors, abducted in northeast Kenya in April last year, had been released.

"The news about the release of the doctors is false and the Somali government did not issue any information about the release of the doctors," Somalia's foreign minister, Ahmed Ise Awad, told AFP.

"However, the Somali government was involved and still continues to take part in the efforts to assist the release." The two doctors, Assel Herrera Correa and Landy Rodriguez Hernandez, were part of a 100-member Cuban medical brigade working in Kenya under a bilateral agreement.

Suspected jihadists seized them in the town of Mandera, where they worked at the local hospital, and took them across the nearby border into Somalia.

One of two police officers escorting the doctors was shot dead.

Earlier Wednesday, a senior Kenyan police officer had told AFP: "It is true they have been freed.

The doctors are now safe." Cuban foreign ministry press chief Juan Antonio Fernandez also denied their release.

"Considerable efforts are ongoing to ensure their freedom and their safe and healthy return to our country," he added.

Kenyan police said the kidnapping bore the hallmarks of Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group that has been waging an insurgency against Somalia's foreign-backed government for over a decade.

A top government official said in May 2019 the kidnappers were demanding $1.5 million for their release.

In December last year, on her return from a trip to Kenya, Cuban Vice President Ines Maria Chapman said the two men were "well" and Nairobi and Havana were pursuing efforts to have them released.

Kenya is a major contributor of troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which in 2011 drove Al-Shabaab out of Mogadishu and other urban strongholds after a months-long offensive.