May 13, 2003 Posted: 10:43 Moscow time (06:43 GMT)
MAKHACHKALA - About 200 people rallied in southern Russia on Monday to demand
that the government do more to find and release a Dutch aid worker kidnapped nine
months ago in the volatile Dagestan region.
The protesters carried portraits of Arjan Erkel and gathered signatures on a petition
to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
They accuse the government of inaction in the August kidnapping of Erkel, who
heads the North Caucasus mission of Medecins Sans Frontieres, known in English
as Doctors without Borders.
"We are not going to leave Dagestan. We will stay until he is found," said MSF
spokesman Mark Walsh.
The aid agency said in a statement Monday that Russian investigators have assured
them that Erkel is alive.
"However, where he is being kept, who abducted him and for what reason remains
a mystery which is unbearable for Arjan's family and MSF alike," the group said
in a statement.
MSF's repeated requests to meet with Putin's administration have been denied,
the group said.
"President Putin should be doing everything in his power to help secure Arjan's
release," said Morten Rostrup, international president of MSF.
Imamudin Timirbulatov, head of the police anti-organized crime unit in Dagestan,
said Monday that "undoubtedly" Erkel is alive, but investigators are not sure
if he is being held in Chechnya or Dagestan.
Erkel is the second MSF employee to be taken hostage in southern Russia. In January
2001, U.S. citizen Kenneth Gluck was held by unidentified gunmen in Chechnya for
25 days. Erkel's kidnapping also followed the July abduction in Chechnya of Russian
aid worker Nina Davidovich. She was released in January.