Two health workers taken hostage in Central Africa

BANGUI, May 22 (Reuters) Two health workers, one working for an Italian aid organisation and the other for a government ministry, have been taken hostage in the lawless northwest of Central African Republic, the United Nations said today.

The two Central Africans were seized on Saturday by unidentified assailants while working on a project to improve access to health facilities in the restive Ouham-Pende prefecture near the border with Chad and Cameroon.

Rebels have fought a low intensity war in the impoverished region, one of several uprisings against President Francois Bozize, who seized power in a 2003 coup in the world's sixth poorest country.

''This raises huge concerns. The humanitarian picture could be changing, making access to the region more difficult,'' Mahimbo Mdoe, UNICEF's acting humanitarian coordinator in Central African Republic, told Reuters.

Both the Italian non-governmental organisation, Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI), and the United Nations called for the immediate release of the captives and reiterated their neutrality in humanitarian activities.

There has been no direct contact with the hostage takers, Mdoe said.

Faced with a decline in the security situation, the United Nations has imposed a curfew on its staff in prefecture, which has a population of over 300,000 people.

Central African Republic has suffered decades of instability and waves of military coups. Bozize, who legitimised his rule at the ballot box in 2005, has also faced an uprising by rebels in the northeast where French forces intervened earlier this year.

UNICEF said last month that a quarter of the country's 4 million population were suffering the effects of the civil conflict or spillover from conflicts in neighbouring Sudan and Chad. More than 300,000 people have been driven from their homes it said, in one of the world's forgotten humanitarian crises.

REUTERS SS ND1936