MOGADISHU, Feb 23: Somali gunmen on Monday freed a foreign mine worker seized in the country’s northern Puntland region over the weekend, an official said.

“We’ve been tracking the kidnappers since last night and finally we succeeded to convince them to release the hostage after negotiations,” said Mohamed Ali Gurhan, a district commissioner in Puntland.

The mine worker seized on Saturday was reported at the time to be a Pakistani holding a British passport.

“There is no condition on this release,” Gurhan told AFP.

A policeman who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed the man’s release and said he was to be returned to Puntland’s capital Bossaso.

Bossaso is a port rife with armed gangs smuggling everything from arms to migrants across the Gulf of Aden.

Last week, two Italian nuns in their 60s were released after having been held since November, when they were kidnapped in Kenya, then taken over the border into Somalia.—AFP