Posted on 08/13/2002 2:55:18 PM PDT by knighthawk
MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) — A Dutch employee of the international medical aid group Doctors Without Borders was abducted in southern Russia, officials said Tuesday.
The Dutch citizen, Arjan Erkel, was seized by three gunmen in the suburbs of Makhachkala late Monday, said Abdul Musayev, spokesman for the Interior Ministry in the Russian republic of Dagestan, which borders on Chechnya.
A duty officer of the Federal Security Service in Dagestan said Erkel was abducted after leaving his translator's home.
Doctors Without Borders, which goes by its French acronym MSF, said in a statement that Erkel was on his way home when his car was intercepted by another vehicle with three man in it, two of them armed. The men forced Erkel into their car, the group said.
``MSF is extremely concerned about this incident and demands the immediate safe release of Arjan,'' it said.
Kidnapping for ransom, often targeting foreigners, is a widespread racket in the Caucasus Mountains region. The Russian Interior Ministry said earlier this year that some 700 people were being held for ransom in and around Chechnya.
Erkel's driver has been detained in connection with the kidnapping and his translator was being questioned as a witness, said Dagestan's first deputy prosecutor, Magomed Abdulkhalikov. He refused to say why the driver was detained.
Musayev said no ransom has been demanded. Kate de Rivero, a spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders in Moscow, said the organization had not been contacted by Erkel's abductors.
Erkel has headed the Dagestan mission of the Swiss branch of the aid group since February. De Rivero said work in the region focused on assisting refugees from the Chechnya conflict.
De Rivero said the group was continuing its operations in Dagestan and Ingushetia, another region bordering Chechnya.
Michel Clerc, a spokesman for Doctors Without Borders in Geneva, said two employees of the Dagestan mission had been called back to Moscow since the kidnapping and that more would likely follow. He said a ``skeleton team'' would remain in the region.
Last month, Doctors Without Borders joined the United Nations in suspending aid operations in Chechnya after Nina Davidovich, head of a Russian partner organization of the United Nation, was kidnapped there.
Chechnya was swept by a wave of abductions after the 1994-96 war in which separatists won de-facto independence. The kidnapping epidemic was cited by Russian officials as one of the reasons for sending troops back into the region in 1999. The Russian military presence in Chechnya has helped reduce the number of abductions, but not ended them.
In January 2001, an American worker with Doctors Without Borders was abducted in the region by unidentified gunmen and held for 25 days.
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