BERLIN, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- Two Germans working in Iraq are missing and may have been abducted, a German newspaper said Monday.
Unknown kidnappers have threatened to kill the men, who had worked in Iraq for many months, German daily Bild said Monday in a statement, citing an article to be published Tuesday.
Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier Monday in Brussels confirmed the report, saying that the men, whose names have yet to be disclosed, have been missing since Feb. 6. On the same day, a ministry crisis group was created to get the men released.
"We hope that this will come to a good end, and of course we are doing everything that these two Germans can return safely to their families," Steinmeier said.
One of the men is working as a technician in the Iraqi foreign ministry, Bild said.
The abduction comes less than a year after two German engineers, Rene Braeunlich and Thomas Nitzschke, spent 100 days in insurgent hands before they were released after Germany reportedly paid ransoms.
Two engineers from the eastern German city of Leipzig, Braeunlich and Nitzschke were taken at gunpoint from their workplace by unidentified men on Jan. 24, 2006, in the Sunni triangle in Iraq. Employed by German engineering firm Cryotec, they had joined a work crew at an Iraqi oil plant in the industrial town of Baiji.
U.S., German and Iraqi intelligence helped to release the men, it was reported afterward. Observers now hope the same channels can be activated to free the latest abductees.
