The worldwide community was shaken Tuesday with word that two Italian female aid workers stationed in Iraq have been kidnapped and are being held by unspecified captors.
'They have been taken hostage,' said Jean-Dominique Bunel of the NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq. 'We have contacted religious authorities and we have informed their families. We are working for their release.'
The hostages were employed by the agency, 'A Bridge To ...,' who have identified the two Italian women as Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, both 29. The assailants also captured two Iraqis identified as Raad Ali Aziz and Mahnaz Bassam.
Torretta, head of the organization’s Baghdad operations, has been in the country prior to the war’s beginning and she has worked for the civic organizations since 1996. Pari arrived in Iraq last year, and was working on a school project in the capital.
A spokesman for the organization, Lello Rienzi, told reporters in Rome that about 20 gunmen in olive green uniforms broke into the group's Baghdad offices, claiming they were from an unidentified 'Islamic group.' However, witnesses in Baghdad said the kidnappers drove up to the one-story villa used by 'A Bridge To...,' and broke in claiming they worked for the office of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
A government spokesman denied that Allawi's office was involved.
According to Bunel, the armed men pushed their way into the office, put guns to the heads of the aid group's guards and grabbed the four workers. One of the Iraqi woman resisted, but they dragged her by her headscarf, threw her into a car and sped away, witnesses said. Another Iraqi man managed to escape.
The attack is the second known instance of kidnapping foreign women since the wave of abductions began earlier this year. The first involved a Japanese aid worker captured in Fallujah in April along with two other Japanese, all were released a week later.
Prior to the break-in, the workers were given no indication that they were in danger. They believed themselves to be working in 'complete security' Rienzi said.
According to its Web site, 'A Bridge To...,' or 'Un Ponte Per...' in Italian, is a volunteer association created in 1991 to bring aid to the Iraqi people and to oppose the embargo imposed on the country. The organization was supplying water and medicines to Falluja, Najaf and Baghdad.
Similarly, five other Italians have been kidnapped in Iraq, two of whom have been killed. In April, four security guards were abducted, and one was executed while the other three were released. Most recently, an Italian freelance journalist was kidnapped last month near Najaf and killed.
Insurgents have kidnapped more than 100 foreigners since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.
Bunel did not mention immediate plans by other private aid organizations to evacuate the country because of the kidnapping. A car bombing last year at the international Red Cross offices prompted many aid groups to flee the country.
