6 U.N. Observers, Aide Taken Hostage

Six U.N. military observers and their translator were taken hostage as they were delivering aid in Georgia’s breakaway territory of Abkhazia. Negotiators were in contact with the abductors, and Interior Minister Kakha Targamadze said on television that “there are special units there which are able to perform the operation of liberating the hostages, but we are doing everything possible to avoid bloodshed.” Officials said the kidnappers were seeking $200,000 in ransom. Those seized consisted of observers from Greece, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Uruguay, Sweden and Germany and an Abkhazian translator. The observers were part of a U.N. force monitoring Georgia’s truce with separatists.