The Danish and American aid workers who were rescued by Navy SEALs from their captors in Somalia, safely reached a U.S. base in Italy on Thursday, according to media reports.
American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Thisted arrived on the Naval Air Station Sigonella base, a day after they were rescued, according to CNN. The two were held in captivity for around three months, but neither were harmed.
Members of the elite NAVY Seal 6 special operations unit were dropped into Somalia from airplane, killed all nine of the captors, and rescued the two aid workers. The SEAL unit is the same one that conducted the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound last May.
Somalia’s transitional government said in a statement the rescue “is a great joy to the Somali government and to all Somalis as well as to all right thinking people everywhere,” reported CNN.
“Hitting them hard is the only language kidnappers of innocent people, pirates, and terrorists understand, and every opportunity should be taken to wipe out this scourge from our country,” the statement added.
Somalia has been without a central government since the early 1990s and a number of different factions control different portions of the country.
President Barack Obama in a letter to Congress on Thursday said he personally ordered the raid and rescue mission.
