Two Red Cross staffers kidnapped in Chechnya

Two staff members of the International Red Cross Society were kidnapped by armed gunmen not far from Grozny on Wednesday.

The International Red Cross Society reported that masked armed people stopped Red Cross cars. They were accompanying a column of the organization's three cars which were returning to Ingushetia after delivering humanitarian aid to the capital of Chechnya.

Kidnapped were Alexander Panov and Musa Satushiyev who in the course of several years had worked for the Red Cross as lorry drivers in Nalchik (republic of Kabardino-Balkaria in the North Caucasus, incorporated in the Russian Federation). Two other staff members were set free.