A correspondent for the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) has been taken captive by armed militiamen in the conflict region in the eastern part of the Democratic Republicof Congo, the newspaper confirmed Thursday according to dpa. The FAZ confirmed an earlier report in the Belgian daily Le Soir that correspondent Thomas Scheen, 43, had fallen into the hands of Mai-Mai militias. The Frankfurt-based FAZ said Scheen was seized on Tuesday as he "got caught between the fronts" in the eastern Congo region. The FAZ said all the responsible authorities were working to gain Scheen's release. According to Le Soir, the Mai-Mai militia was making Scheen's freedom conditional on rebel general Laurent Nkunda withdrawing his forces from the region. The paper said Scheen was captured near the village of Kiwanja, an area where there has been heavy fighting between the Mai-Mai militias and Nkunda's forces.
