TBILISI - Four Georgian citizens have been kidnapped in the pro-Russian secessionist region of South Ossetia amid heightened border tensions, a senior Georgian interior ministry official said on Wednesday.
The four men disappeared on Monday while travelling to Tskhinvali, the separatist region's main town, in order to buy a car, Deputy Interior Minister Bidzina Bregadze said.
"We categorically demand that the Tskhinvali authorities take the necessary steps to free the kidnapped men and arrest the kidnappers," Bregadze told journalists.
South Ossetian police are working with peacekeepers to try to locate the missing men, a senior Georgian police officer told AFP.
The disappearances come after a skirmish in South Ossetia on May 29 killed a Georgian police officer and four South Ossetian officers.
Bregadze cautioned Georgians against travelling to South Ossetia for safety reasons. South Ossetian authorities "do not control the criminal situation on their territory," he said.
Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement that it knew of three missing Georgian citizens and called on all sides to exercise restraint.
South Ossetia declared independence after the fall of the Soviet Union and fought a brief war with Georgia in 1992. Moscow sent peacekeeping troops to South Ossetia and offered ethnic-Ossetian residents Russian citizenship.
Brought to power by a peaceful "rose revolution" 18 months ago, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has set reuniting the country as his most urgent priority.
06/08/2005 15:42 GMT