"Medecins Sans Frontieres" demands unconditional release of head of its Daghestan mission Arjan Erkel

The "Medecins Sans Frontieres" international organization is extremely concerned about the fate of the head of its Daghestani mission Arjan Erkel, abducted on August 12th in Makhachkala, and is demanding his unconditional release, says a statement of the MSF Moscow representation.

The MSF has received no news of Erkel since his abduction a week ago, the statement says. Yet its representations in Makhachkala and Khasavyurt remain open, though all previous activities in Khasavyurt and in the Tsumadinsky district have been suspended.

The kidnapping of Arjan Erkel and of Nina Davidovich, an employee of the Russian non-governmental organization Druzhba on July 23rd, "testifies to a great risk civilians and relief workers run in the region", the statement goes on.

The MSF employees had provided thousands of resettlers with medical aid, as well as with accommodation and sanitary work. More than 50,000 Daghestanis got an opportunity of improving their health thanks to the MSF mobile clinics, as well as the medicines and equipment the organization had provided to several medical institutions in the Tsumadinsky, Botlikh, Novolaksk and Khasavyurt districts.