Relief services for about 260,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon will be cut to the minimum because of the kidnapping of two Scandinavian employees of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the agency said Saturday. ``There will be noticeable changes in UNRWA services and activities because of security problems and the lack of freedom of movement,'' said agency spokesman Niall Kiely. ``We feel agency staff, be they foreign nationals or locals, are under threat to their physical safety.'' UNRWA employees Jan Stening, 44 of Sweden, and William Jorgensen, 58, of Norway, were kidnapped Feb. 5. UNRWA said Palestinians, acting independently of guerrilla factions, kidnapped the men for personal motives. Kiely said only four of the 14 international staff assigned to Lebanon remained in west Beirut and ``they are very heavily involved in the search for Stening and Jorgensen.'' He said he was ``reasonably hopeful'' that the Scandinavians would be released because ``there are no real setbacks'' in negotiations. He did not elaborate. Kiely said UNRWA has canceled a repair program for Beirut's war-ravaged Chatilla and Bourj el-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camps ``because it can't be supervised.'' About 2,200 local relief workers serve with UNRWA at field centers in Lebanon. Kiely said another impact of the kidnappings in south Lebanon was that all UNRWA transports between Beirut and the southern port cities of Sidon and Tyre have been stopped both ways. He said agency operations such as schools ``have a certain momentum, so for the moment many services will continue to run as before.''
