På Afrikas horn intet nytt

En av de svenska medborgare som sitter fängslade i Somalia, misstänkt för att ha stridit med islamisterna, uppmärksammas i en artikel i Bradenton Herald. Enligt hans familj har svenska myndigheter inte berättat om de kommit närmare en överenskommelse med sina somaliska motsvarigheter.

Another prisoner who was able to communicate with his family was Osman Yassin Ahmed, a Somalia-born Swedish citizen who was jailed along with his wife, their 7-month-old daughter and a son who's about 3 years old.

Ahmed, 39, called his younger brother in Stockholm one day in early February from Addis Ababa.

"I spoke to him for about 50 seconds," the brother, Sahal Yassin Ahmed, said in a telephone interview from Stockholm on Monday. "He said, `Hello, I'm fine, I'm in Addis somewhere near the embassy (district).' He never called me again."

Ahmed was arrested around Jan. 6 on the Somali-Kenyan border and spent at least two weeks in prison in Kenya, according to Kenyan human rights groups.

His brother said he'd been living in Stockholm for 17 years and had traveled to Somalia last October to obtain a passport for his newborn daughter and bring his family back to Sweden.

His brother said that while in prison in Kenya, Ahmed met with representatives of the Swedish Embassy, who brought the family clothes. But since the detainees' transfer to Somalia on a flight in late January, Ahmed's relatives have received little information on their whereabouts from Swedish authorities in Stockholm, Nairobi or Addis Ababa.

"They don't want to tell us anything," Sahal Yassin Ahmed said.