Security Council demands immediate release of UN hostages in Georgia5 June – The United Nations Security Council today demanded the immediate, unconditional release of four personnel from the UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) taken hostage earlier in the day by unknown armed elements.
The incident occurred when a joint UN Mission and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) peacekeeping force were patrolling in the upper Kodori valley, scene of previous clashes in the Georgia-Abkhazia conflict.
The CIS soldiers were released shortly thereafter but the UN personnel - two military observers, a paramedic and a local interpreter - are still in the hands of the hostage-takers.
They managed to report by radio that they were unharmed, a UN spokesman said in New York.
"We are very concerned at this incident," the Council President for June, Ambassador Sergey Lavrov of the Russian Federation, told reporters after a briefing by Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hédi Annabi. "The members of the Council support what the [UN] Secretariat is doing and we join in the demand to release hostages immediately without any conditions."
The UN Mission is in contact with the Georgian authorities, who have the prime responsibility for the security of UN staff, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said. The representative of the Georgian President for the Kodori valley had flown into the valley to establish contact with the hostage-takers, he added. The UN is also in contact with the Abkhaz authorities and the leadership of the CIS peacekeeping force.
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