Germans won't march for hostage
2005-12-13 20:03
Berlin - The sister of a German woman who has been held hostage in Iraq for more than two weeks complained on Tuesday of apathy among her fellow Germans about the case.
Anja Osthoff, whose sister Susanne Osthoff was seized along with her driver in Iraq on November 25, said she was having trouble persuading people to join a march in Berlin to raise awareness of her sister's plight.
"I am disappointed. People would rather go to warm department stores than out in the cold for a march," Anja Osthoff told the BZ newspaper in an advance extract of its Wednesday edition.
She said she was hoping that up to 1 000 people would join the march.
Susanne Osthoff, a 43-year-old archeologist and aid worker married to an Arab and a convert to Islam, was kidnapped on November 25 with her driver near Ninive in northwestern Iraq.
The only known word from her since has been a video released to a German TV station purportedly showing Osthoff and her driver blindfolded and surrounded by armed men.