2010-04-13
GENEVA (Reuters) - Eight Red Cross staff were seized by an armed group in eastern Congo last week, and an outbreak of fighting in the area could put the hostages at greater risk, the aid group said on Tuesday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the Swiss citizen and seven Congolese were seized on Friday by Mai Mai militia after their convoy was stopped in the remote area of Fizi, in Democratic Republic of Congo's South Kivu province.

"We are concerned because they are being held in a region of open military operations," Inah Kaloga, communications coordinator at ICRC in Congo, told Reuters.

Congo's army and the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country said on Tuesday that the Mai Mai group had been involved in fighting that erupted in Fizi overnight on Monday.

Kaloga said traditional community leaders were helping in talks with the gunmen and the ICRC had been able to confirm that its seized staff were in good health. However, contact had been cut since the start of the fighting.

"We have been in contact with the group to explain we were on a humanitarian mission and as such have a neutral stance on the conflict," Kaloga said.

Franz Rauchenstein, head of the ICRC delegation in Congo, called on the gunmen to release the aid workers as soon as possible.

ICRC said that its staff were being held by the Mai Mai Yakutumba group, one of several factions of the Mai Mai, a broad term used to describe the local defence militia that fought for the government against rebels during Congo's wars.

The Yakutumba faction last year pulled out of efforts to integrate its fighters into Congo's new army, complaining about conditions on offer. Its leader, Yakutumba Amuli, rejected a senior rank in the army.

Last week the group ambushed the army northwest of Fizi and killed an officer, the United Nations said.

The ICRC said the group stopped a convoy of two ICRC vehicles and six people on a road in the area last week. Two ICRC guards who went to investigate were subsequently held.

The ICRC is among the few aid groups working in the area, whose remote hills and lack of roads make it hard to reach. The humanitarian organisation maintains a permanent presence in South Kivu province in Bukavu, Uvira, Marungu and Fizi.

A U.N.-backed military operation to oust Rwandan Hutu rebels from North and South Kivu launched attacks at the end of February, involving dispersed and sporadic fighting that has displaced thousands of people.

It is not clear if the recent fighting in Fizi is related.