Dozens of heavily armed gunmen kidnapped two Italian aid workers and their Somali colleague in southern Somalia on Wednesday, witnesses and a diplomat said. Village elder Ahmed Yunis said the gunmen, armed with machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades, had surrounded the aid workers' house in Awdhigle, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of the capital, Mogadishu. The gunmen then blindfolded the aid workers _ an Italian man and woman and a Somali man _ and took them away, Yunis said. He said it was not clear who the gunmen are or why they abducted the aid workers, according to a report of the Associated Press.
