Two years without news of ICRC staff member abducted in Chechnya

Geneva(ICRC) - The office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Groznyis suspending its work today for one day. It has been two years since Usman Saidaliev, one of the ICRC's employees in Chechnya, disappeared.
Usman Saidaliev was abducted from his home in the villageof Novy-Engenoyby unidentified armed and masked men during the night of 2 August 2003. Since then neither Usman's family nor the ICRC have had any news of his whereabouts.

Numerous representations have been made by the ICRC with a view to elucidating Usman's fate, but with no results up to now. The ICRC is continuing to search for information about his abduction.

For further information, please contact:

Anastasia Isyuk, ICRC Moscow, tel.: +7 095 926 54 26 or +7 903 545 35 34

Annick Bouvier, ICRC Geneva, tel. + 41 22 730 24 58 or + 41 79 217 32 24

or visit our website: www.icrc.org