ABQ resident kidnapped while working in Africa

Michael Sharp, 34, a UN expert on the Democratic Republic of Congo, was taken with five others

A man with Albuquerque ties has been kidnapped by unknown assailants in the Democratic Republic of Congo where he was working as a United Nations expert on the African nation, his father confirmed Tuesday.

Michael Sharp, 34, and a second U.N. official had “fallen into the hands of negative forces not yet identified,” along with four Congolese in the nation’s Kasai Central province, Reuters reported based on a statement issued by the Congolese government.

Sharp made Albuquerque his “U.S. base” and took up residence here within the past year, his father, John Sharp of Hesston, Kan., said Tuesday in a brief phone interview.

Official reports do not list the date of Sharp’s abduction and include few other details.

The United Nations posted a brief state-

ment on its website Monday confirming that two members of a group of experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo “are reported missing” in that country.

It also said that the U.N. and the U.N. peacekeeping operation there “are doing everything possible to locate the experts.” The statement did not identify the two.

Reuters News Agency reported that Sharp and Zaida Catalan, a U.N. official of Swedish nationality, were part of a U.N. panel investigating conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Fighting has simmered there since the mid-1990s, when a civil war spawned dozens of armed groups and drew in neighboring armies, Reuters reported.

Sharp and Catalan were kidnapped while traveling by motorcycle through the country’s heavily forested Kasai Central province with three motorcycletaxi drivers and a translator, all of whom were abducted.

The Kasai Central province has seen fighting between Congolese security forces and a local tribal militia called the Kamuina Nsapu since July, Reuters reported.

John Sharp, who teaches in the History and Bible departments at Hesston College, a college of the Mennonite Church USA, said his son attends the Albuquerque Mennonite Church during his visits to New Mexico.

The Rev. Tom Kauffman, pastor of the Albuquerque Mennonite Church, said he has had few opportunities to get to know Sharp.

“I know he spends much of his time overseas, so it isn’t surprising that I didn’t see him a lot,” said Kauffman, who pastors an Albuquerque congregation with about 60 members. Sharp rents an apartment in Albuquerque, he said.

The Mennonite World Review reported that Sharp has worked for the U.N. since 2015 and previously had spent three years as the Mennonite Central Committee’s Eastern Congo coordinator.

The Mennonite Central Committee and its partner organizations plan to make rescue efforts separate from those of the U.N., the Mennonite publication said.