MOGADISHU, Jan 1 (Reuters) - The Spanish branch of the charity Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) pulled its foreign staff out of southern Somalia on Monday following the abduction of two of its employees in the north of the country.
Spanish doctor Mercedes Garcia and Argentine nurse Pilar Bouza were seized by gunmen in Bosasso on Dec. 26 as they drove to a hospital in the semi-autonomous Puntland region.
"MSF Spain withdrew its foreign staff from Jawhar and Middle Shabelle province saying it could not keep them in the region as long as two of its aid workers were in captivity," Osman Haji Abdule, mayor of Jawhar district, told Reuters by telephone.
He said the charity's local staff were still at work.
The kidnappers of the two MSF (Doctors without Borders) employees have demanded a ransom, Puntland's president Addi Muse said on Sunday, adding he had assurances the foreigners were safe.
But he said he would not give in to the demand for money.
Meanwhile, in the Somali capital Mogadishu, suspected Islamist-led insurgents attacked a police station overnight in the Dharkenley district in the southwest of the city.
Abdulahi Hassan Barise, the local police commander, said none of his officers were hurt.
"We carried out searches this morning and seized a weapons cache found at a madrasa Islamic school in the neighbourhood," Barise said. "The weapons we confiscated included mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and machinegun."
On Monday, a local human rights group said conflict in Mogadishu had killed 6,500 civilians and wounded 8,516 more.
The Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation said it had recorded 1.5 million people uprooted from homes in the city during a year that began with the toppling of an Islamist movement that was followed by an insurgency.
Abdulahi Ibrahim Omar, a police spokesman, said the insurgents had stepped up their attacks since the weekend, forcing hundreds more residents to flee.
"They showing that they can still disrupt the security of Mogadishu and bring about mayhem," he told Reuters by phone.
"They have their own agents and spies everywhere and they kill anyone involved in the government. Yesterday they killed a high ranking military official and his bodyguard. We will pursue them and put them behind bars when we catch them." (Writing by Daniel Wallis)#
SOURCE: Reuters, January 1, 2008