Members of the Shebab Islamist group have stolen £480,000 ($750,000, 550,000 euros) worth of British government-funded humanitarian materials and supplies in Somalia, it emerged on Sunday.

The theft, revealed in the fine print of the Department for International Development's annual accounts, is likely to fuel concerns about how Britain is spending its foreign aid at a time of budget cuts at home.

An Ethiopian Air Force cargo plane crash-landed at Mogadishu's seaside airport on Friday, killing four people on board, the African Union said.

Two crew members were rescued by emergency personnel and are being treated in the African Union military hospital near the base, said Mahamat Saleh Annadif, an African Union representative to Somalia. He said the runway wasn't damaged and airport operations are expected to resume soon.

Families of some of the more than 50 sailors and fishermen held hostage by Somali pirates begged for their release Thursday, with some imprisoned now for more than two years.

"We are in desperate condition living with little hope to see our beloved soon," said the message from families of the crew of the MV Albedo, a Malaysian-flagged container ship with 15 sailors still held, from countries including Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

Somalia's northeastern Puntland region said Monday it had cut all relations with the central government in Mogadishu, raising the prospect of further fractures to the already war-torn nation.

In an official statement, Puntland accused the internationally-backed government in the capital Mogadishu of undermining the federal constitution and of ignoring "national reconciliation" efforts.

A suicide car bomb attack struck a Turkish embassy annex in Mogadishu Saturday, killing a Turkish guard and a Somali bystander, witnesses and officials said.

"One of our policemen from the special forces tasked with protecting the embassy annex targeted in the attack has unfortunately died," the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.

At least one person was killed Saturday when a car bomb exploded in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, the latest in a string of attacks, a local official said.

The car, a government vehicle, exploded near the Sanca intersection in the north of the capital.

At least one person was killed and several others were wounded Wednesday when a car bomb exploded in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, the latest in a string of attacks, police said.

The blast targeted a car belonging to a member of parliament who was not hurt in the attack.

Two Spanish aid workers kidnapped almost two years ago in Kenya and then held in Somalia have been freed, their employer Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Thursday.

Montserrat Serra and Blanca Thiebaut, 40 and 30 respectively at the time of their kidnapping from the Dadaab refugee complex near the border with Somalia in October 2011, are both "safe and healthy", MSF said.

Gunmen have shot and injured two Somali reporters in the war-torn south, their colleagues said Thursday, in the latest attack on journalists in the country.

Mascud Abdulahi Adan, a reporter for Dalsan radio, was seriously wounded by a bullet in the back, while Mohamed Farah Sahal, working for Goobjoog radio, was hit in the shoulder, according the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ).

Somalia's semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland has suspended long-awaited local elections, its government said Sunday, saying the risk of violence was too great to hold them.

"Puntland hereby suspends the local council elections" due to held Monday, a government statement read, warning of what it called "domestic spoilers and external manipulators funding and organizing instability and election violence".