Somali kidnappers have freed two journalists, Briton Colin Freeman and Spanish photographer Jose Cendon, a government official said today.
"The two European journalists were freed and they are now in a hotel in Bosasso, Puntland," said Muse Gelle Yusuf, a regional governor of Bari in the semi-autonomous northern Puntland area.
The two were abducted in November as they left a hotel in the port of Bosasso.
Mr Freeman works for Britain's Sunday Telegraphand Mr Cendon is a freelance.
Foreigners, journalists and humanitarian workers are frequently abducted for ransoms in the chaotic and violent Horn of Africa nation.
In August, two freelance journalists - an Australian and a Canadian – were kidnapped near the capital, Mogadishu. They are still being held.
For two decades, Somalia has been beset by anarchy, violence and an insurgency which has killed thousands of civilians and sent hundreds of thousands fleeing from mortar shells, machine-gun crossfire and grenades.
The United Nations says Somalia has 300,000 acutely malnourished children, but attacks and kidnappings of aid workers have shut down many humanitarian projects.
The anarchy has also allowed Somali pirates to flourish, attacking 111 ships around the Gulf of Aden in 2008, hijacking 42 of them and earning tens of millions in ransom. Fifteen ships with over 260 crew are still in the hands of pirates, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
AP