Chad gunmen kidnap French Red Cross worker: ICRC

GENEVA (AFP) – Armed men have abducted a French Red Cross worker in eastern Chad near Sudan's Darfur region, prompting one charity to plan a reduction of its presence, official said Tuesday.

Laurent Maurice, an agronomist who was in the area to evaluate the most recent harvest, was snatched at around 9:00 pm (2000 GMT) on Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement.

Maurice was spending the night with five Chadian colleagues in the village of Kawa, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the border with Sudan, when he was kidnapped.

"The ICRC currently has no indication of who the abductors might be or of their motives. It is in contact with the authorities and other parties with the aim of resolving the situation as swiftly as possible," it added.

The aid agency called for the "rapid and unconditional release of its kidnapped staff member" and said it had temporarily suspended its activities in eastern Chad.

Non-governmental organisation Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders - MSF) told AFP it planned to further reduce its presence in Chad.

"With this new kidnapping we have increased our vigilance and plan to further reduce our teams" working in the country, MSF's Michel Lacharite said, adding that the French "seem to be more targeted than others".

A Greek employee of MSF was kidnapped in eastern Chad in August. He was released a month later.

The French foreign ministry requested Maurice's "release as soon as possible," saying it did not have many details but was "in the process of trying to collect information."

Besides supporting a health centre in the village of Kawa, the ICRC runs other programmes in eastern Chad, including offering aid to those displaced by internal conflict, as well as visiting detainees in prisons.

Aid agencies have reported several attacks in the region in the past year, with bandits often blamed for the violence.

Chadian General Oki Daggache, who heads coordination with an international force in eastern Chad, criticised non-governmental organisations for refusing escorts.

"The humanitarian workers of the ICRC and MSF cause us too many problems. They refuse to be escorted by MINURCAT (the UN Mission in Chad and the Central African Republic) and even by members of the integrated security detachment," Daggache said.

"What's worse, they don't tell local authorities about their movements on the ground and so they become very difficult to manage," he added.

ICRC spokeswoman Anna Schaaf would not comment directly on Daggache's criticisms, but explained that as standard operating procedure, "we don't work with armed escorts, in order to keep our neutrality."

"That's how we work all over the world. We cannot accept armed escorts in an armed conflict if we want to stay neutral."

She added that before carrying out any mission, the ICRC informs "all parties in the conflict and we get security guarantees."

She said that the aid agency had already been subjected to minor incidents but nothing on the scale of Monday's kidnapping.

In March, British charity Oxfam estimated that 25 attacks occur every month on non-governmental organisations operating in eastern Chad.

The arid region is home to an estimated 450,000 refugees and displaced people, including from Sudan and the Central African Republic, putting a great strain on scarce food resources and firewood.

It is also beset by violence spilling over from the neighbouring Darfur region of Sudan, where a brutal crackdown in recent years has killed 300,000 people and displaced millions more, according to the United Nations.