More OSCE monitors detained in Ukraine

Four Organization for Security and Cooperation of Europe (OSCE) monitors have been captured by insurgents in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian foreign ministry said Wednesday.

"They are detained by pro-Russian groups and we are working to release them," Xinhua quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Eugene Perebiynis as saying.

Ukrainian law enforcement agencies had sent a special unit to free the captives as soon as possible, Perebiynis said, adding their whereabouts were not yet known.

On Tuesday, the OSCE said it had lost contact with a four-person monitoring team, which was on an observing mission near Ukraine's Donetsk.

The team is comprised of a Turk, an Estonian, a Dane and a Swiss.

Earlier in the day, German OSCE special envoy Wolfgang Ischinger said the organization could withdraw its monitors if their lives were at risk.

In April, rebels took a group of OSCE military observers, mostly from Europe, in Donetsk region and held them for a week.