KABUL - Afghan authorities said on Friday that kidnapped Italian aid worker Clementina Cantoni was still alive, and they were working hard to secure her release.
"We are working hard to release her safely," presidential spokesman Khaleeq Ahmad told AFP.
Some media organisations reported that Temur Shah, the alleged kidnapper of the 32-year-old Italian aid worker, had killed Cantoni Thursday night after President Hamid Karzai's government refused to accept his demands.
"We have no such report," interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said but stopped short of issuing an outright rebuttal of Shah's claims.
An interior ministry official said that up to 10:00 am (0530 GMT) government officials were in contact with the kidnappers and had no report of her death.
"We have accurate information that she is safe," a high-ranking police official told AFP separately.
Cantoni, 32, who works for CARE International, was dragged from her car by armed men in the Qala-e-Mosa district of Kabul on Monday evening.
Talks between Afghan authorities and the kidnappers have run into difficulties after a delegation of tribal elders brought from the eastern province of Logar failed to mediate between the government and the abductors.
The delegation could not mediate because the "atmosphere was not conducive" for the talks, an interior ministry source told AFP.
Tribal elders are often used as negotiators in abductions in Afghanistan which have targetted foreign reconstruction workers whose companies are reported to have paid ransoms for their release.
The case has been murky with the alleged kidnapper Shah, whose identity remains unconfirmed, calling media organisations from Cantoni's phone and issuing conflicting demands for her release including a ban on alcohol and television music programs.
However, Afghan intelligence officials said Shah had asked authorities to release his monther who was being held by police for murder to be freed in exchange for Cantoni's liberation.
The Italian woman's kidnapping has sent shockwaves through the foreign community in Kabul, with most restricting their movements and obeying a curfew.
Meanwhile Italian officials and Cantoni's colleagues in the Afghan capital were preparing a poster appeal for information about her abduction and a call for her release.
"The poster campaign will start tomorrow. They are going to be distributed by Afghan aid workers and Afghans participating in the NGO project, particularly widows' programs managed by Clementina," Paul Barker, country director of CARE told AFP.
Many Afghans have also been angered by Cantoni's abduction as she had been living in Afghanistan for three years and working on a feeding and employment program for Afghan widows for CARE International.
Cantoni's widows' program has helped more than 10,000 Afghan widows and their children over the past two years and there was a huge outpouring of grief and support from women who had been given a livelihood by her work.
Arifa, one of the widows who had been helped by Cantoni to start their own poultry businesses told AFP: "We want her to be freed because she helped us. If they don't free her it feels as if they are murdering our children because she found us food and did so much for us."
Cantoni's kidnapping is not the first in the Afghan capital. Last October three UN workers were abducted in Kabul in broad daylight by men in military dress who were members of a criminal gang with links to Islamic militants.
They were released a month later and there have been conflicting reports over whether a ransom was paid despite official denials.
05/20/2005 17:46 GMT