Red Cross worker kidnapped in Pakistan

ARMED men seized a Red Cross worker from the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta today, police and the organization said.

Local police officer Nazir Ahmed Kurd said his initial information was that the man was a British health worker.

But an intelligence official in the city said the man was Yemeni. The official didn’t give his name because he is not allowed to be identified in the media.

International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman Sitara Jabeen declined to disclose the man’s name or nationality.

Kurd said the man was seized from a vehicle that was heading to a Red Cross office in an upscale housing complex in Quetta. He said the victim had been visiting a local school.

Quetta is home to Islamist militants as well as separatist insurgents.

Both have kidnapped foreigners and locals in the region.

In 2009, an American working for the United Nations refugee agency in the city was kidnapped and held for two months.