IRAQ/SWITZERLAND: Gunmen kidnap dozens at Baghdad Red Crescent office, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) call for their immediate and unconditional release

Record ID: 640804

  • Title: IRAQ/SWITZERLAND: Gunmen kidnap dozens at Baghdad Red Crescent office, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) call for their immediate and unconditional release
  • Date: 18th December 2006
  • Summary: PIERRE KRAEHENBUEHL GIVING NEWS CONFERENCE JOURNALISTS AT NEWS CONFERENCE
  • Embargoed: 2nd January 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA69N4KKI65FCIUT191OGCNN5E0
  • Story Text: Gunmen wearing police uniforms kidnapped dozens of people after storming a branch of the Iraqi Red Crescent office in central Baghdad on Sunday (December 17), Red Crescent Secretary General, Mazen Abdullah said.
    "At eleven o'clock this morning, thirty of our staff and visitors to the Iraq Red Crescent society Baghdad branch has been, have been kidnapping from the office of Baghdad branch in Baghdad in Andalous (central Baghdad) area by a group of military (men), the same uniform as the police and the same car of the police, Iraqi police from our office there they kidnapped them to unknown place and now we are trying to contact all the official ministry of interior, ministry of defense to have any information about them. And I am from this place make an appeal for all the kidnapper and also for all the Iraqi people that we are unitarian, we are independent, we are neutral. We are looking to help the Iraqi people everywhere without dealing with their ethnic or religious or political issues just helping the dp's, the displaced people, the disabled and also the refugees everywhere, try to help the Iraqi people and those staff working hard every day to help the Iraqi people everywhere so i ask those group to release them directly."
    Baghdad is plagued by daily kidnappings, both political and criminal. Last week, gunmen in camouflage fatigues abducted some 30 people in an industrial area in central Baghdad but released most of them a few hours later.
    Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government is struggling to contain soaring sectarian tension and daily violence that UN officials estimate kills more than 100 people a day.
    The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called for the immediate and unconditional release of some 30 people who were kidnapped by unidentified armed men on Sunday (December 17) from the Iraqi Red Crescent's local duty station in Baghdad.
    "Early this morning Baghdad time, approximately 30 people, most of whom were staff of the Iraqi Red Crescent were abducted from the duty station that they were working at, at the local branch of the Iraqi Red Crescent centre of Baghdad. The ICRC is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all of the Iraqi Red Crescent staff and all the people that were abducted with them. The fact of targeting people who are not taking part in the hostilities, however complex the situation may be in Iraq, is something that is unacceptable, and we call for everybody's sense of humanity here to spare the people who are currently being held. So this is an appeal to all actors involved, and obviously the ICRC will take up contact with all authorities and actors of influence in this context," Pierre Kraehenbuehl, ICRC's director of Operations said.
    The mass kidnapping took place outside the fortified Green Zone, where British Prime Minister Tony Blair was about to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in an unannounced visit, and included mostly Iraqi Red Crescent employees, but no ICRC personnel.
    According to a Red Crescent official and witnesses, the gunmen arrived in pickup trucks at the office, took all the men, separated them from the women and left.
    The Iraqi Red Crescent, the only Iraqi aid agency working in all the country's 18 provinces, has 1,000 staff and 200,000 volunteers.
    Baghdad is plagued by daily kidnappings, many of which are carried out by armed groups on either side of the conflict between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs. Criminal gangs also carry out mass kidnappings for extortion.
    Malkik's Shi'ite-led government is under pressure from Washington to do more to stem daily violence that UN officials estimate kills more than 100 people a day.
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