Two Swiss Red Cross Workers Abducted in S. Lebanon

Masked gunmen kidnaped two Swiss Red Cross workers at a medical center outside the Lebanese port city of Sidon on Friday, the latest in a series of abductions of foreign relief personnel in Lebanon’s lawless south.

The two men, identified as Emmanuel Christen, 25, and Elio Erriquez, 23, were bundled into the trunk of the kidnapers’ car and driven off in the direction of Ein el Hilwa, a large Palestinian refugee camp, according to press reports from Sidon.

The Palestinian camp lies less than 100 yards from the Red Cross center, where Christen and Erriquez were assigned as technicians fitting artificial limbs to Lebanese war victims. One report quoted a policeman as saying the gunmen’s car and a backup vehicle entered the camp.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the abduction, the third similar case in less than a year in the area.

Last November, the International Committee of the Red Cross withdrew its staff members from Lebanon after the kidnaping of Peter Winkler, a Sidon-based official of the organization. He was released a month later and Swiss authorities sent their representatives back in January after reportedly receiving assurances from armed groups that there would be no further kidnapings.

Then, in May, gunmen abducted two West German men working for the Humanitas relief organization in Sidon. The Germans, Heinrich Struebig and Thomas Kempner, are still missing and believed to be among 16 foreign hostages still held in Lebanon, including eight Americans. Most of the foreign hostages were kidnaped in West Beirut, 25 miles north of Sidon, by pro-Iranian elements. On July 31, one of the radical Islamic cells, the Organization of Oppressed on Earth, reported that it had killed Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, one of the American hostages, and released a videotape of his body, hanging from a gallows.

Winkler’s kidnapers reportedly had threatened to abduct other Swiss workers after his release, alleging that the Red Cross and Swiss authorities had reneged on a promised ransom payment.

Press reports from Sidon said that Friday’s kidnapers were waiting in two cars outside the medical center when Christen and Erriquez drove up to begin work. “Christen parked the car at the center’s parking lot and climbed out, holding an artificial limb,” a Lebanese policeman was quoted as saying. When two gunmen jumped from one of the cars and trained their weapons on the medical aides, he said, “Christen and Erriquez immediately threw their arms up, offering no resistance. They were bundled at gunpoint into the trunk of the (car), which sped off followed by the other car, loaded with armed guards.”

Mustafa Saad, head of the Popular Liberation Army, a Lebanese militia that effectively controls Sidon, denied any responsibility in the kidnaping in a meeting with reporters. “This is an Ein el Hilwa affair, not mine,” he was quoted as saying, implicating radical Palestinian groups active in the refugee camp.

Outside the camp is the Palestinian shantytown of Miye ou Miye, where forces of the terrorist kingpin Abu Nidal reportedly have a base. His breakaway Palestinian group, Fatah-Revolutionary Council, was implicated in the Winkler kidnaping but has denied it played a role.

“I think those who carry out such actions do it as a blackmail (for ransom) rather than for any political or national stand,” Saad, the Nasserite leader, told reporters Friday.

Carlos Bauverd, a spokesman for the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, said the kidnaping of Christen and Erriquez would deter the humanitarian work of his agencies that work in Lebanon.