Suspected Al-Shabaab militia of Somalia abducted three foreign staff working for U.S.-based Action Against Hunger in northern Kenya, Kenya's authorities confirmed on Saturday.

A senior security official said the staff from U.S., Pakistan and Zimbabwe were abducted on Friday at 1900GMT at a house in the border town of Mandera and taken across the border into the lawless nation.

"The three staff working for Action Against Hunger were abducted on Friday night at around 10:00 p.m. (local time) and taken across the border into Somalia. The Somalis had three vehicles and guns," said the security official who did not want to be named.

A spokesman for the Action Against Hunger Kenya Office declined to comment but said the company which has a big mission in northern Kenya was still verifying the facts.

"I cannot confirm at the moment the abduction of our staff in Mandera. We are still verifying the facts on the ground ... to know what happened and who was involved," the company spokesman who declined to disclose his name told Xinhua by telephone.

The security officer said about 10 gunmen crossed from the Horn of Africa nation which has been without effective central government since 1991 to abduct the workers from the border town of Mandera.

Kidnappings targeting relief workers and foreign journalists are not uncommon in the lawless Horn of Africa nation and most of the people abducted are released unharmed after a ransom payment.

Action Against Hunger has been operating in Kenya, North Eastern Province (Mandera and Garissa) since 2004 to reduce the vulnerability of the population to acute malnutrition.

More recently, ACF-Kenya has engaged in emergency responses in Nairobi and the Rift Valley. The organization has also been present in Somalia since 1992.

(Xinhua July 18, 2009)