Somalia kidnap victims tried to escape

There’s an unconfirmed report circulating that kidnapped journalists Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan tried to escape their Somali captors late last month. The allegation comes from a "prominent Somali contact for western journalists"

Daud Abdi Daud, Executive Director of Somali Journalists Rights Agency says the pair, in his words, "came close to being killed" on January 26th. Daud says Lindhout and Nigel Brennan escaped in Mohgadishu and ran to the shelter of a mosque. He says, "they appealed to the holy men in the mosque for protection and were told to hide behind the chair of the senior Mulla who was reading the Holy book". Daud claims two gunmen fired shots inside the mosque and when the militia arrived Amanda Lindhout and Brennan were forcibly removed and were pushed into a car. Daud also says Lindhout reportedly tried to throw herself out of the car without success. link

We continue to update the kidnap story on this post.

UPDATE: Reporters without Borders refute the claim and denounce the source,

Leonard Vincent, [who heads the Africa desk of Reporters Without Borders…] is sceptical. "The source that it comes from is absolutely not reliable. In fact, we think that might be, in one way or the other, related to the kidnappers," he said from Paris. link