Irish, Kenyan aid workers feared kidnapped in Somalia

NAIROBI, May 10 (Reuters) Two aid workers, one Irish and one Kenyan, are missing and feared kidnapped in the semi-autonomous Puntland region of north Somalia, their organisation said today.

''We know the elders and local authorities are already working on it,'' said CARE International's regional spokeswoman Beatrice Spadacini, confirming the pair were missing since yesterday.

A Kenyan source, who tracks Somalia but asked not to be named, said armed men took the pair in a village about 75 miles (120 km) south of the Puntland capital Bossasso.

There was no word on who the attackers might be.

Puntland runs itself independently from the rest of Somalia and has been relatively more peaceful in recent years.

But the whole Somali region has a troubled history of abductions and assassinations of local and foreign aid workers, particularly in the self-declared independent enclave of Somaliland.

Authorites have generally blamed militant Islamists for the attacks on foreign workers.

Spadacini said details of the latest incident were sketchy, but it looked like a ''local issue.'' REUTERS RJ DS1342