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Kidnapping victim has wallet to thank

Aid worker recounts 'utter chaos' in Kenya

By: Will Campbell

Posted: 07/9/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Canadian aid worker Steven Dennis discusses his Kenyan kidnapping ordeal alongside his girlfriend Sara McHattie (left) and parents Carol-Ann and Peter Dennis in Toronto on Sunday. (WILL CAMPBELL / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

TORONTO -- The realization he had been kidnapped only hit Steve Dennis as the Canadian aid worker was being sped away by gunmen from the Kenyan refugee camp he'd been visiting minutes before.

By then though, all he could do was try to stay calm.

Dennis was in a three-car convoy with fellow workers from the Norwegian Refugee Council on June 29 when a group of kidnappers moved in, firing shots and shouting in Somali.

The 37-year-old described the utter chaos that broke out as the "most stressful time" of the entire experience.

"Some attackers came from the front, some came from behind. They were trying to get the cars to stop," Dennis told reporters in Toronto Sunday, speaking publicly for the first time since the dramatic rescue of four kidnapped workers from Somalia last Monday.

"We knew that kidnappings can last a long time... it was definitely a relief to be out of that very quickly."

The hostage-taking unfolded after the driver in the car Dennis was travelling in was wounded in the gunfire, as was the person seated behind him, he recounted.

The bullet that could have ended Dennis' life, however, was stopped short.

"I got shot in my wallet... I got a small cut but very much my wallet took most of the brunt of that (gunshot)," said Dennis, who is from Toronto.

Pulled from his vehicle, Dennis was then shunted into another car used by the refugee organization along with the three other kidnapped workers, including another Canadian.

The Kenyan driver of that car was killed -- the only death during the snatching -- and the vehicle was then used as the getaway car.

Qurat-Ul-Ain Sadazai, 38, of Gatineau, Que., Astrid Sehl, 33, of Norway, and Glenn Costes, 40, a Filipino who was shot and injured during the initial kidnapping, were snatched with Dennis.

The aid workers' convoy had also been carrying NRC Secretary General Elisabeth Rasmusson when it was attacked, but she was not harmed or taken.

Dennis said the kidnappers didn't appear to know who they grabbed.

"If they were after a particular person likely it was the higher-up people (from the aid group) and they didn't get them. There was no clarifying 'where is this person, where is that person.'

"I think they were opportunistic and they were lucky at that time."

Racing away, the humanitarian workers calmed down as they considered the facts of what had just happened, Dennis said.

The getaway vehicle was soon ditched and the kidnapping turned into a march across the border to neighbouring Somalia, Dennis recalled.

The workers were made to hide under bushes during the day to avoid being spotted, and then began walking after the sun went down.

Dennis said the kidnappers treated him and the other aid workers with "respect and humanity."

"Occasionally when we would be standing up people would brush the leaves off of us, and also have other signs of caring for us, possibly more than just keeping an investment safe."

It was around 6 a.m., on their fourth day in captivity, when a pro-government Somali group made the daring raid that killed one kidnapper and ended the workers' ordeal.

Dennis said the rescue began when the hostage-takers were out scavenging for branches to camouflage the bushes the workers were held under.

He said the workers had no idea a rescue mission was beginning as the kidnappers were engaged by the pro-government group.

-- The Canadian Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 9, 2012 A8

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