Gunmen kidnapped two Italian nuns in Kenya before dawn Monday and took them across the border into lawless Somalia, officials said.
The Italian Foreign Ministry said its crisis unit is working with Italian ambassador to Kenya to secure the nuns' freedom. The nuns are Catholics, and the papal nuncio in Kenya is also involved, the ministry said.
The nuns were seized from their home in El Wak, on the Somali border about 420 miles (675 kilometers) northeast of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, the Kenya Red Cross said in a statement.
The bandits also stole three vehicles, the Red Cross said.
"I have seen two expatriates in a car with militias surrounding them," Shacban Mohamed Ali, a witness, told the Associated Press.
The nuns had been visiting areas affected by a recent drought, Ali said.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since clan warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991. The current transitional government is weak and corrupt. It is supported by Ethiopian troops who ousted Islamists from the capital and much of the south in December 2006.
