Belgian, Dane, Swede and Swiss among MSF Staff Taken in Syria

W460

Belgian, Danish, Swedish and Swiss nationals are among five Doctors Without Borders (MSF) staffers seized by an unknown group in northern Syria this week, the humanitarian organisation said Saturday.

Spokespeople from the various chapters of the group in the different countries confirmed the information regarding the MSF employees taken Thursday night from a house they were using in war-ravaged Syria.

"I can't give you any details for security reasons, but one of them is of Swiss nationality," MSF Switzerland spokeswoman Sibylle Berger told Agence France Presse.

"We haven't had contact with them since then," acknowledged Karin Ekholm, spokeswoman for MSF Sweden.

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders also confirmed to broadcaster RTL-TV that a Belgian nurse in his 30s was one of the five who had been taken, although he stressed that it remained unclear whether they were victims of a kidnapping.

"We do not have confirmation from other sources (besides MSF), so I want to make clear that I'm talking only about a possible kidnapping," he said.

It remained unclear who had taken the staff members and MSF has declined to release further details about them or the exact location of the house they were taken from.

"We are still trying to analyse the situation and see what we can do to help our colleagues," Berger said, explaining why the organisation was being so tight-lipped.

In a statement Friday, the organisation said only that the five had been taken "apparently for questioning".

"MSF is in contact with all the appropriate actors as well as the families of the colleagues and is doing everything possible to reestablish contact with these colleagues," spokeswoman Samantha Maurin said in that statement.

MSF has six hospitals and four health centers in northern Syria and provides health support from neighboring countries to within Syria as well as to Syrian refugees.

In September 2013, a Syrian surgeon working for the group was killed in the north of the country, and aid workers operating in rebel-held parts of Syria have faced detention and kidnappings.

In October, seven employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross were kidnapped in northwestern Idlib province, with a Syrian NGO blaming the abduction on the al-Qaida-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

ISIL has been accused of targeting both foreign and Syria journalists as well as aid workers and activists for kidnapping.

Comments 1
Default-user-icon john Chrsitopher Sunol (Guest) 05 January 2014, 06:22

this is war crimes, I always through it was a geneva convention that doctors who were to help the dying and injured were safe from being attacked even in tiemes of war