UN workers may have been separated

THERE were fears last night Irish UN worker Annetta Flanigan and her fellow hostages may have been taken to separate locations as her captors seek to evade Afghan authorities.

The Taliban splinter group known as Jaish-e-Muslimeen or Army of Muslims holding Ms Flanigan said they had moved Ms Flanigan and they had also relocated her two UN colleagues, Filipino Angelito Nayan and Kosovan Shqipe Habibi.

The group's spokesman Akbar Agha said if one of the election workers was found, the other two would be executed.

It is the latest chilling development in the case, following threats to kill the election workers this week if demands issued by the group were not met.

Their demands include the release of all prisoners in Afghan prisons and from the Guantanamo Bay complex in Cuba. The group set a deadline of next Friday for its demands to be met, otherwise the hostages would be killed.

The three volunteers were shown on a videotape at the weekend, with UN officials in Kabul demanding their release and calling for medical attention to be administered.

Both the Flanigan family and their local rector, Rev David Coe in Richill, Co Armagh, declined to comment yesterday on the latest developments.

Former SDLP deputy leader Seamus Mallon called on the hostages to be released.

"I ask for them to be released immediately and not just these people, but their families and this community."

UN press officer in Kabul Manuel De Silva said he was not in a position to make any comment on the case and said there was nothing new to report.

Ms Flanigan, a Law graduate from Queen's University in Belfast, had previously worked in Rwanda and elsewhere with the UN.

Her Spanish husband is also working in Afghanistan, where Annetta and her colleagues were overseeing elections in the troubled country.

The trio was seized at gunpoint by a gang of men last Thursday.

Comments attributed to Akbar Agha indicated they had been abducted because of their role in the Afghan elections.

The NATO backed International Assistance Security Force (ISAF) and Afghan police have launched a manhunt for the kidnappers and made a number of arrests in Kabul last week.