Nairobi/Mogadishu  - Two foreign aid workers employed by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) have been kidnapped by gunmen in Somalia, reports said Sunday.

The African news media network Shabelle. net, quoting witnesses, said the pair were taken on the way to Hudur, the capital of the Bakol region in south-west Somalia.

The BBC's Somali service said the two men, employees of MSF Belgium, were Danish and Belgian.

A bloody insurgency is ongoing in Somalia, where militant Islamist group al-Shabaab is fighting the western-backed government.

Aid workers and journalists have been regular targets for abduction and murder. According to the UN, 35 employees of aid agencies were killed and 26 kidnapped in Somalia last year.

Somalia has been mired in chaos since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. dpa