A Canadian is among four aid workers kidnapped in Kenya.

Gunmen kidnapped the four and killed a driver at Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp near the border with Somalia on Friday, Reuters reported.

The other three people are from Norway, Pakistan and the Philippines.

There was no word on the identity of the Canadian.

Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Claude Rochon said Canadian officials are aware and are seeking information.
"We are pursuing all appropriate channels to seek further information and are in close contact with Kenyan authorities," Rochon said in an e-mailed statement to QMI Agency.

"We will not comment or release any information which may compromise these efforts. The government of Canada's first priority is the safety and security of its citizens."

The gunmen are suspected sympathizers of Somalia's al Qaida-linked al Shabaab insurgents, regional deputy police chief Philip Ndolo, told Reuters.

In Somalia, al Shabaab said it was not aware of the attack.

"So far we are not aware about any aid workers kidnapped from Kenya's refugee camps," Sheikh Abdiasis

Abu Musab, the spokesman for al Shabaab's military operations, told Reuters.

Police and the military were pursuing the kidnappers who drove towards the Kenya and Somalia border, police said.

"I can confirm that military helicopters have been dispatched," Col. Cyrus Oguna of the Kenya Defence Forces told Reuters.

Ndolo said the car in which the aid workers were travelling had been abandoned by the attackers, and the group was probably using another vehicle or were on foot.

He could not say if they had already crossed into Somalia.

Dadaab, about 100 km from Somalia, was set up in 1991 to house Somalis fleeing violence in their country.

It has since become the world's biggest refugee camp with almost 500,000 residents.