Arjan Erkel
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Arjan Erkel (born March 9, 1970) is a Dutch medical aid worker and was head of the relief mission for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Dagestan, a constituent republic of the Russian Federation.
His main task was caring for refugees fleeing from fighting in neighbouring Chechnya.
He was abducted by gunmen in Makhachkala on August 12th, 2002. To this day, the humanitarian group is not sure who abducted Mr. Erkel or why, but it does know that he was being shadowed by Russian security forces in the days before his disappearance.
On April 11, 2004, Erkel was free again and seemed to be in reasonably good health. The Dutch government has paid a 1 million Euro ransom, but claims that it never pays ransom itself, and has made the payment on behalf of MSF, being a loan that MSF has orally promised to pay back. However, MSF is unwilling to do that. In June 2004 the Dutch government announced a lawsuit.
MSF has suspended its operations in Chechnya several times over kidnappings of its personnel.nl:Arjan Erkel