May 27, 2014, the National
Eleven people, including six members of a UN chemical weapons fact-finding mission, have been abducted by armed groups in Syria, said the foreign ministry.
The ministry said the abductions occurred in the countryside around Hama in central Syria on Tuesday.
It blamed rebels fighting to topple president Bashar Assad, accusing them of committing “terrorist crimes” against the United Nations staff and the UN Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The OPCW, which monitors the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and oversees the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, sent a team to Syria this month to investigate claims that chlorine had been used in the region of Hama.
* Associated Press