Nairobi - Kenyan police on Thursday said five Kenyans have been seized by Somali insurgents near the border between Somalia and Kenya.

The five, four education officers and their driver, were on a visit to the north-eastern Kenyan town of Mandera.

They crossed the border to Somali, supposedly to go shopping, and were taken by Somali insurgent group al-Shabaab on Wednesday.

Al-Shabaab, which continues to wage a bloody struggle against the Somali government, said it had arrested the Kenyans for crossing the border with no papers.

Nairobi/Khartoum- A Sudanese aid worker employed by a Canadian agency has been shot dead in Sudan's restive Darfur province, the agency's country director said Tuesday.

Mark Simmons, Sudan director for The Fellowship of African Relief (FAR), said that gunmen first ambushed Adam Khatir, 39, on Saturday night in the town of Kongo Haraza to demand his satellite phone.

This attempt failed, but they came to Khatir's home on Monday evening to try again.

Nairobi - Tens of thousands of animals were at risk in Kenya on Monday after forest fires sent wildlife fleeing and dried up water sources in a country already suffering from drought.

A fire at Mount Longonot, an extinct volcano popular with hikers, continued to burn on Monday, with game wardens concerned that animals such as baboons, rabbits and mongoose were trapped inside the crater of the extinct volcano.

Nairobi/Banjul -  - Amnesty International called Wednesday on the Gambian government to halt a campaign against suspected witches that it says has seen up to 1,000 people kidnapped, poisoned and beaten.

Witnesses and victims told the human rights' body that witch doctors from neighbouring Guinea - accompanied by police, army and national intelligence agents - have been invading villages and seizing villagers accused of being witches.

Those taken are held at detention centres for up to five days and forced to drink an "unknown substance" that causes them to hallucinate.

Berlin  - Germany plans to ask Kenya to take custody of nine pirates captured earlier this week by the German Navy off the coast of Somalia, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Sunday.

Prosecutors in the German city of Hamburg issued arrest warrants for the nine Somalis on Friday, but a day later said there was no need for them to be transferred to Germany.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman said the request for Kenya to take custody of the pirates would formally be made to authorities in Nairobi by the German embassy on Monday.

Germany's government had been seeking the transfer of the suspects to Kenya, a move that was sealed Friday morning in an agreement with the European Union.

Hamburg/Berlin  - A court in Hamburg late Friday issued arrest warrants for the nine pirates captured earlier this week by the German Navy off the coast of Somalia.

The state's attorney requested the arrests based on charges of an attack on traffic on the high seas, justice spokesman Wilhelm Moellers told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The German government had been seeking the transfer of the suspects to Kenya, a move that was sealed Friday morning in an agreement with the European Union.