|
||||||||
  |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Aid drivers kidnapped in Chechnya
MOSCOW, Russia -- Two Russian charity workers have been kidnapped in Chechnya, a Red Cross official has said. The pair, who are said to be drivers for the International Red Cross, were forced out of their truck at gunpoint on Wednesday. Vincent Lusser, a Red Cross spokesman in Moscow, said Alexander Panov and Musa Satushiyev were abducted between the villages of Pobedinskoye and Goragorsky. Interfax news agency said the prosecutor in the region's pro-Moscow government had opened an investigation into the attack, but quoted him as saying the motive for the kidnap was not yet known. The men were travelling in a convoy made up of two trucks and a Land Cruiser returning to the Russian republic of Ingushetia after delivering a humanitarian shipment to the Chechen capital Grozny. The masked gunmen stopped the convoy and forced the two drivers out of their vehicle, but let the other drivers continue with their journey. "We're extremely worried about their fate," Lusser said. The Red Cross usually requires its foreign staff working in the region to be accompanied by armed security guards. But Russians working for the Red Cross have not been subject to the requirement. "We never had any indications that our national staff would be targeted," Lusser said. Panov and Satushiyev live in the Kabardino-Balkariya region of the Caucasus and have worked for the Red Cross for several years. Kidnapping for ransom has long been a lucrative business for criminals in Chechnya, awash with arms after almost a decade of war. The Red Cross is one of the few western aid agencies still operating inside the separatist province. This latest incident comes five months after Nina Davidovich, another Russian who worked for a local non-governmental organisation, was also kidnapped in Chechnya. Her abduction resulted in the United Nations temporarily suspending its aid operations in the separatist region. A month later Arjan Erkel, a Dutch citizen working for Medecins San Frontieres, was abducted in neighbouring Dagestan. (Story) Both abductions remain unsolved. The Russian military, which has been fighting separatists in Chechnya for almost a decade, has stepped up operations in the region after gunmen seized a Moscow theatre last month. Almost 700 hostages were taken, of which 128 died during the operation to free them. (Full story) The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has 300 local staff and 19 expatriates in the Caucasus region, suspended its Chechen activities in 1996, during the first post-Soviet campaign in the region, when six employees were shot dead in a hospital compound.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
