Peter-Arjan Erkel (born 9 March 1970 in

Prins Alexander Prins Alexander is a borough in the northeast of Rotterdam, Netherlands. As of 2023, it had 96,452 inhabitants, making it the most populated borough in the city. Prins Alexander has 7 neighbourhoods: * Het Lage Land * Kralingseveer * Nesselan ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

) is a Dutch former medical aid worker who was head of the relief mission for

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF; pronounced ), known in some English-speaking settings as Doctors Without Borders, is a charity that provides humanitarian medical care. It is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) of French origin known for its projects in conflict zo ...

(MSF) in

Dagestan Dagestan ( ; ; ), officially the Republic of Dagestan, is a republic of Russia situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, along the Caspian Sea. It is located north of the Greater Caucasus, and is a part of the North Caucasian Fede ...

, a constituent republic of

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. His main task was caring for refugees fleeing from fighting in neighboring

Chechnya Chechnya, officially the Chechen Republic, is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia. It is situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, between the Caspian Sea and Black Sea. The republic forms a part of the North Caucasian Federa ...

Disappearance

Erkel was abducted by three gunmen in

Makhachkala Makhachkala, previously known as Petrovskoye (1844–1857) and Port-Petrovsk (1857–1921), or by the local Kumyk language, Kumyk name of Anji, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Dagestan, Russia. ...

on 12 August 2002. The insurgency phase of the

Second Chechen War Names The Second Chechen War is also known as the Second Chechen Campaign () or the Second Russian Invasion of Chechnya from the Chechens, Chechen insurgents' point of view.Федеральный закон № 5-ФЗ от 12 января 19 ...

was still ongoing at the time, and Erkel writes in his own biography that he was guarded by "heavily armed muslim rebels", with whom he managed to have limited conversations during his abduction.

Rescue

On 11 April 2004, Erkel was free again and appeared to be in reasonably good health. Originally, the Dutch government claimed that Erkel was rescued in a special operation conducted jointly by the Russian (Federal Security Service) FSB and local Dagestani police and that Arjan was slightly hurt in the storming of the hideout. The government eventually admitted that that was a lie and that they paid a 1 million

euro The euro (currency symbol, symbol: euro sign, €; ISO 4217, currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the ...

ransom Ransom refers to the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release. It also refers to the sum of money paid by the other party to secure a captive's freedom. When ransom means "payment", the word ...

to free Erkel, but claimed that it didn't pay the ransom itself but on behalf of the organisation, claiming it was a

loan In finance, a loan is the tender of money by one party to another with an agreement to pay it back. The recipient, or borrower, incurs a debt and is usually required to pay interest for the use of the money. The document evidencing the deb ...

that MSF had orally promised to pay back. MSF refutes this and in June 2004 the Dutch government announced a

lawsuit A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...

. This is the first time a national government has sued an aid agency.

Aftermath

MSF has suspended its operations in

several times over kidnappings of its personnel. In March 2007 the

Dutch government The Netherlands is a parliamentary representative democracy. A constitutional monarchy, the country is organised as a decentralised unitary state.''Civil service systems in Western Europe'' edited by A. J. G. M. Bekke, Frits M. Meer, Edward E ...

lost the case: MSF does not have to pay back the 770,000 euro the government has paid, and gets 45,000 euro back of the 230,000 euro it paid through the government. The government

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which Legal case, cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of cla ...

ed; the appeal was lost in February 2008. The Dutch government appealed again at the Federal Tribunal in Lausanne and won the case, forcing MSF to pay back 270,000 euro to the Dutch Government.

References

External links

Jamestown
MSF and Dutch government trade accusations over Erkel
MSF
Arjan Erkel kidnapping: How the puzzle was solved {{DEFAULTSORT:Erkel, Arjan 1970 births 2000s missing person cases Dutch anthropologists Formerly missing Dutch people Kidnapped Dutch people Living people Missing person cases in Russia Physicians from Rotterdam

Disappearance

Rescue

Aftermath

See also

References

External links