The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed on
Thursday that four of its staff members, including two expatriates,
had been kidnapped by an opposition group in Afghanistan.
"We confirm that four ICRC staff members were seized by an armed
opposition group on their way back to the delegation in Kabul in
the district of Wardak, southwest of Kabul," ICRC spokeswoman Carla
Haddad said in Geneva.
Haddad did not mention the name of the opposition group, but she
was obviously referring to the Taliban forces.
Local police in Afghanistan had said that Taliban opposition
abducted two international and two Afghan ICRC employees on
Wednesday and a search had been launched for the missing group.
A spokesman for the Taliban forces had also confirmed that they
were the kidnappers, according to media reports.
Haddad said the four hostages include two expatriates from
Myanmar and Macedonia respectively. The other two were Afghan
national employees.
The four were being held in an "undisclosed location" and the
ICRC was in contact with "all parties concerned with the aim to
resolve the current situation as swiftly as possible," she
said.
(Xinhua News Agency September 28, 2007)
