2 Red Cross Workers Kidnaped at Sidon : Radical Palestinian Group Involved, Sunni Leader Says

Masked gunmen today kidnaped two Swiss Red Cross employees who worked distributing artificial limbs to victims of Lebanon’s civil war and drove them to a Palestinian refugee camp, police said.

The two workers were seized when they arrived at a Red Cross center outside this port 25 miles south of Beirut, police said.

Officials at the Geneva headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross condemned the kidnaping, which comes 11 months after the abduction of another Swiss Red Cross worker in Sidon.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. A Sunni Muslim militia leader indicated that a radical Palestinian group was involved.

Orthopedic Technicians

Police and the Red Cross identified the victims as Emmanuel Christen, 32, and Elio Erriquez, 23, and said both worked as orthopedic technicians at the Red Cross center, which distributed the artificial limbs to victims of the 14-year-old civil war.

The Red Cross pulled all its 31 Swiss delegates out of Lebanon on Dec. 20 after the abduction of Peter Winkler, a Red Cross official in Sidon. The Swiss man was kidnaped Nov. 17, 1988, and released Dec. 16.

News reports in Switzerland and Lebanon said at the time that Winkler’s kidnapers threatened new anti-Swiss attacks, claiming that the Red Cross and Swiss authorities reneged on a pledge to pay ransom for Winkler’s freedom.

The Red Cross mission returned to Lebanon on Jan. 22 after all parties in Lebanon pledged that it would not be attacked.

The assailants today, wearing black masks, were waiting in two cars at the entrance of the center near the Ein el Hilwa refugee camp when the relief workers’ white Peugeot car arrived, police reported.

Bundled Into Trunk

“Christen parked the car at the center’s parking lot and climbed out, holding an artificial limb. Erriquez got out from the car’s opposite door, followed by a Lebanese ICRC employee,” a police spokesman said.

Two men immediately leaped out of a dark-colored Mercedes, one with a pistol and the other a machine gun trained at the Red Cross men, the spokesman said.

“Christen and Erriquez immediately threw their arms up, offering no resistance. They were bundled at gunpoint into the trunk of the Mercedes, which sped off followed by the other car, loaded with armed guards,” the spokesman said. The spokesman said the two cars headed in the direction of the camp.

The abduction was the latest in a chain that has targeted relief workers with foreign humanitarian organizations in south Lebanon.