Somali police exchanged fire with a group of armed men who kidnapped two foreign aid workers in the semi- autonomous Puntland region Wednesday, hours after they were taken captive, DPA reported. "I heard heavy gunfire between the policemen and the kidnappers. I don't know whether the kidnappers were captured or whether the aid workers were hurt," Sadia Ibrahim, who witnessed the clashes in the town of Bossasso in the north-eastern region. MSF evacuated its international staff from the area, a spokeswoman said, after Spanish doctor Mercedes Garcia and Argentinian nurse Pilar Bauza were manhandled from their car earlier Wednesday by the gun-toting abductors. MSF spokeswoman Susan Sandars could not say what condition the women were in nor if they had been released. "The kidnappers, armed with guns, blocked a minibus carrying these two ladies and then soon transferred the aid workers to their vehicle and drove away," Fartuun Saadak, a witness, said earlier. French journalist Gwen Le Gouil was released Monday after being kidnapped in Puntland for over a week.
