AFP via ReliefWeb: Three UN observers in the troubled Caucasus republic of Georgia were taken hostage early Thursday on the country's border with the breakaway region of Abkhazia, a Georgian official told AFP.

Tamaz Nadareishvili, a senior Georgian official from the region based in Tbilisi, said that a group of eight people including four Russian peacekeepers, one intepreter and the three UN monitors were seized by unknown assailants. The Russian troops accompanying the observers raised the alarm after being released, he said. The intepreter and the UN staff remained in captivity.