Aid agencies pasted hundreds of posters of a kidnapped Italian relief worker across Kabul yesterday, urging people to come forward with information about her whereabouts.
The move came a day after foreign media reports quoted Temur Shah, the purported kidnapper of Clementina Cantoni, 32, as saying that he killed her because the government did not agree to his demands. The Italian's employer, Care International, however, said it was uncertain about the accuracy of the reports.
"Please help Clementina. She has been taken. For three years she served 10,000 widows and 50,000 war orphans in Afghanistan. If you have any information, please call," the posters said.
Cantoni was seized on Monday in Kabul. Since then, hundreds of police have manned roadblocks and searched poor neighborhoods where they suspect she may be held captive.
Shortly after the reports emerged about the hostage being killed, Shah contradicted the reports, saying by telephone that he had brought a doctor to treat Cantoni and that she was OK.
He did not say what the medical problem was.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
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