Somali released, Lindhout & Brennan still held captive

The Somali fixer, Abdifatah Mohamed Elmi, who was kidnapped along with Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan was released recently. Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan are still being held captive but no new news about their well-being has surfaced. The kidnappers had demanded $2.5 million US for the release of Amanda and Nigel back in September or else Amanda and Nigel would be murdered.

We hope that Amanda and Nigel will be released soon. But the kidnappers shouldn't see a penny. That would only encourage more kidnappings. National Post

A Somali journalist and driver kidnapped along with Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout last summer said Friday he had given up all hope of being freed after more than 100 days in captivity.

Abdifatah Mohamed Elmi said he was kept blindfolded in a room the entire time, and none of his kidnappers spoke to him until the end of his captivity.[...]

Elmi said he had no information about the well-being or whereabouts of Lindhout, of Sylvan Lake, Alta., or Brennan, and that he was not held hostage in the same location as the two.

"When we were captured, we all shut our eyes, then we go to a place that I don't know where I was, why we go there," Elmi said. "I haven't seen the other colleagues that were with me."

He said he rarely heard the kidnappers talk about the two foreigners.

"I asked them: ‘Where is my colleagues?' They couldn't say," he said. "Sometimes I hear that they are still alive, but I don't know the reality."