UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations said Tuesday it is working with the governments of Canada and Niger and others in west Africa to help secure the release of the kidnapped U.N. special envoy to Niger.
Last week, Tuareg rebels from The Front for the Forces of Redress, said they had seized four people on Dec. 15, including veteran Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler who has been serving as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s special envoy to Niger since July.
“The U.N., the government of Canada and the government of Niger are working in close partnership with each other and regional actors to resolve this case,” U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.
“We are pursuing all appropriate channels to seek further information about this case and to secure their safe return,” she said. “We will not comment or release any info which may compromise those efforts and endanger the safety of these persons.” U.N. officials confirmed that Fowler’s abandoned car was found 30 miles northeast of Niamey, the capital of Niger, on Dec. 14.
Okabe said last week that Fowler was on “official business” at the time.
The Front For Forces of Redress is a splinter group of a larger rebellion being fought by ethnic Tuareg nomads in Niger’s northern desert. The Tuaregs, a nomadic people living in the vast sand dunes of the Sahara Desert, have long been at odds with the government of Niger.
A rebellion broke out in 1990 and ended with a 1995 peace accord. It promised a degree of autonomy, development funds for the north, and integration of the Tuareg minority into the country’s armed forces and government.
But hostilities resumed last year as the government of President Mamadou Tandja began actively drilling for uranium in the northern desert.
“We are sending Canada a strong signal as they are one of the sources of arms for Tandja used to fight the native population,” the group said on its Web site.
