On Thursday Italian charity Emergency director Rossella Miccio told a news conference in Kabul that requests for news on the whereabouts of Matteo Dell'Aira, Marco Garatti and Matteo Pagani and for details of the charges against them have fallen on deaf ears.

The three have not been heard from since Afghan police whisked them away on April 10 after weapons were allegedly found in a raid by Afghan police and British troops on the group's hospital in Lashkar Gah.

Emergency said that the raid had been conducted "without any legal authority" as it had not been authorised by a court.

"None of the Afghan authorities or the representatives of the international military coalition has had any contact with Emergency to explain the reasons for this event," the Milan-based non-government organisation said in a statement.

Helmand province governor Gulab Mangal has alleged that the three medics were part of a Pakistani Taliban-funded plot to kill him.

Mr Mangal also accused the Italians of being behind the death of an Afghan interpreter who was seized by militiamen in April 2007.

The UN special representative to Afghanistan Staffan de Mistura has called for a "quick and thorough" probe into the allegations.

"I am hopeful that these arrests are due to some serious misunderstanding," he said.

There had been earlier reports of tensions between Emergency and Mr Mangal because of the group's policy of treating all patients, including resistance fighters.

And on February 18 Mr dell'Aira was interviewed by progressive US broadcaster Democracy Now about the rise of civilian casualties during the Marjah assault.

He accused Nato forces of blocking civilians from using roads, preventing injured people from receiving timely medical attention.

And Mr dell'Aira alleged that "90 per cent of the victims are civilians, and 30 per cent of this 90 are children.

"War is not a solution, it is a tragedy and we feel this tragedy every day, 24 hours a day, in our hospital emergency room."

Meanwhile, five Afghan UN employees have been reported missing amid reports that their vehicles had been hijacked in the same northern province where guerillas killed four German soldiers and three Afghan police the previous day.

Word of the UN workers' disappearance in Baghlan province followed twin car bombings on Thursday targeting foreign firms in Kandahar that killed at least three people.

The Morning Star