Sweden – Achgut, July 22, 2026
How the German nurse Sonja Nientiet disappeared in Somalia—and has now been held hostage there for eight years (!). The German government remains silent. Why it must finally act. A petition.
Sonja Nientiet, born in 1970, is a nurse from Hamm, North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 2014, she had worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in crisis regions, including Syria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In January 2018, she began working in Somalia, where she served as a first-aid trainer at the local Red Cross center.
On the evening of May 3, 2018, at around 8:00 p.m. local time, Nientiet left the Red Cross office, which was located outside the heavily secured “Green Zone.” As she walked down a corridor, she was overpowered by an armed security guard. The guard, who had been assigned to protect staff members, dragged the 47-year-old through a rear exit, where an accomplice and a getaway vehicle were waiting. A Kenyan ICRC employee was also briefly forced into the vehicle as a hostage.
Shortly afterward, Somali security forces found the abandoned getaway car on the outskirts of the city with a flat tire. During the breakdown, the Kenyan colleague managed to escape. Sonja Nientiet vanished without a trace.
Suspicion quickly focused on an inside job. Somali authorities stated that a member of the ICRC security team had collaborated with the kidnappers. Within days, the kidnappers reportedly demanded a ransom of $20 million through intermediaries and threatened to murder the hostage or sell her to the so-called Islamic State if their demands were not met. At that point, the German government was informed.
