A British-Zimbabwean aid worker has been freed by his Somali captors after a ransom was reportedly paid.

“I am well and free …. and travelling back to Adado,” Frans Barnard, who works for the Save The Children charity, was quoted as telling the AFP news agency on Wednesday.

Barnard was seized by a group of armed men in the Somali town, the capital of the Himan and Heb region, last Thursday. A local employee of the charity was abducted at the same time but released shortly afterwards.  

Save the Children confirmed that Barnard was “on his way to a place of safety”.

“We continue to be concerned for him but at this point we are cautiously optimistic,” Anna Ford, Save the Children’s spokesperson in Nairobi, told the Reuters news agency.

Ransom reports

Local elders involved in negotiations that led to his release said the kidnappers had been $100,000.

“The gunmen asked for 150,000 dollars to free the hostage but  they were only paid 100,000,” the AFP news agency quoted one of the negotiators as saying.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/10/2010102043217384155.html