RABAT, Dec 1, 2009 (AFP) - Three Spanish aid workers kidnapped in Mauritania over the weekend have not been freed, a Moroccan government official said Tuesday, denying information given earlier by a security source.

"This information is pure speculation," the official source told AFP, rejecting comments from a Moroccan security source that the hostages had been abandoned by their kidnappers in the Aguouimite region, a buffer zone located between northern Mauritania and southern Western Sahara.

The three Spanish volunteers, two men and a women, were travelling in a convoy delivering humanitarian aid to west Africa when they were kidnapped on Sunday.

They have been named as Albert Vilalta, 35, Alicia Gamez, 35, and Roque Pascual, 50.

Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba has said Al-Qaeda's north African branch, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), was likely behind the abductions.

mc-heg/sas/boc

Copyright (c) 2009 Agence France Presse
Received by NewsEdge Insight: 12/01/2009 15:53:35