Journalist released in Somalia

A French journalist abducted by Somali gunmen was released today, eight days after he was seized in the northern part of the country, police said.

“A kidnapped journalist was released this afternoon. He is now in Bossaso and is feeling well. No ransom was paid,” Abdiaziz Said Mohamoud, Puntland police commissioner, said.

Cameraman Gwen Le Gouil was seized on December 16 outside the town of Bossaso in Puntland, an area associated with coastal piracy and known as a staging post for human traffickers running boats into Yemen.

Elders from Somalia’s influential clans had intervened to try to win his release.

The area where Le Gouil was kidnapped is about 930 miles north of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, which is at the centre of an Islamic insurgency that has killed thousands of people this year. The United Nations says Somalia is facing Africa’s worst humanitarian crisis.

On Monday, 100 Burundian peacekeepers arrived in Mogadishu, following the first deployment of 100 a day earlier to bolster 1,800 Ugandan troops already in place.

The African Union has said it wants to deploy 8,000 peacekeepers in Somalia, but countries have been slow to come forward with troop contributions.