The two foreigners are said to be Kenyans working for a Swedish group International Aid Services that operates in Mudug region of central Somalia.

Confirming the incident, Puntland’s area deputy regional governor Ahmed Muse Noor told Sunatimes that the aid workers were kidnapped neat the villahe of Baadweyn after engaging police escort with brief gun-battle where an officer was killed and two others injured.

Noor said the whereabouts of the kidnapped aid workers still remain unknown.

The incident comes less than a week after four foreigners working for the Norwegian Refugee Council were released in southern Somalia following a successful operation by Somali forces three days after their kidnapping.

In October 2011, gunmen seized two Spaniards working for Medecins sans Frontieres in the world’s largest refugee camp in northern Kenya. They are still being held hostage in Somalia.

The abductions marked the latest kidnappings of foreigners in unrest-plagued Somalia which has been in political turmoil since 1991 when the country plunged in civil war.