FED: Downer confident missing aid workers are still alive

AAP General News (Australia)
04-08-1999
FED: Downer confident missing aid workers are still alive

ADELAIDE, April 8 AAP - Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer today said he
was confident two Australian aid workers missing in Yugoslavia were alive.

But, given that it had been a week since anyone had heard from CARE Australia workers Steve
Pratt and Peter Wallace, Mr Downer said he was very worried about them.

"I still don't know where they are and I am very worried about them," Mr Downer said.

"I'm confident they're alive ... I think I'd have heard otherwise if they weren't.

"The Yugoslav authorities have been quite helpful in the sense that the foreign ministry
and other ministries have said that they would look for them and see what they could find out
but they just say they don't know where they are."

CARE Australia chief executive Charles Tapp has gone to search for Mr Pratt and Mr Wallace
in the company of Australia's Ambassador to Yugoslavia Chris Lamb.

Mr Pratt, 49, of Sydney and Mr Wallace, 30, of Mackay have been missing since March 31.

The last contact with them was by telephone when they were being questioned at a Yugoslav
border post near Croatia.

AAP vm/pa

KEYWORD: KOSOVO CARE (CARRIED EARLIER)

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