QUETTA, Feb 21: The mother of John Solecki, an American taken hostage in Quetta while working for a UN agency for refugees, appealed on Saturday for her son’s release.“We want to be with John again,” Rose Solecki said.

“We cannot bear the shock of losing John,” she said on an audiotape released by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

Solecki, head of the UNHCR in the Balochistan province, was abducted on Feb 2 by gunmen who ambushed his car and shot dead his driver in Quetta.

An unheard of militant group called the Balochistan Liberation United Front (BLUF) has claimed responsibility and threatened to kill Solecki unless the United Nations acts on its demands.

The BLUF wants the United Nations to secure the release of 141 women it says have been detained in Pakistan, provide information about more than 6,000 missing persons, and resolve the issue of Baloch independence under the Geneva Convention.