Three workers with the Catholic aid organisation Caritas were abducted today in a troubled region of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the charity said.
The incident occurred 125 kilometres northwest of the provincial capital of Goma, in an area notorious for attacks by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebel group.
"Two Caritas-Congo vehicles were ambushed in Misinga and three Congolese workers were kidnapped," Caritas-Congo spokesman Guy-Marin Kamandji said.
"One of the vehicles came under fire... (but) was able to turn around," he said.
One of its occupants, a German photojournalist, was wounded in the leg, he said.
The vehicles were carrying neither money nor aid, Kamandji said.
FDLR members are the "suspected authors" of the kidnapping, he said.
Set up in the eastern DRC after the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, the FDLR has been accused of committing frequent atrocities against civilians in areas under its control.
Several of its chiefs face accusations of war crimes or crimes against humanity.
North Kivu province, which borders Uganda and Rwanda, has been the scene of repeated clashes for nearly two decades, and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced.
Abductions of aid workers have been a frequent occurrence this year in the areas of Masisi, Lubero, Rutshuru and Walikale, despite fierce condemnation by the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
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