QUETTA - Gunmen abducted a French tourist on Saturday, snatching him from a group of compatriots, who included women and children, in Chagai district of Balochistan near Pakistan-Iran border, official sources said. Six French tourists, including two men, two women and two children who were travelling to Iran via Taftan border by two vehicles, were stopped by six kidnappers armed with Kalashnikovs at Landi area some 30km away from Dalbandin town, sources said. Kidnappers held tourists hostage for some time and later took one of them gunpoint in a vehicle towards an unknown location, official sources told The Nation. Sources said that tourists had left Quetta at morning and were heading towards Iran. The abducted tourist was identified as Anthio, 41. So far, no one has taken responsibility for the abduction. It may be mentioned here that an American UN official John Solecki had been abducted by a shadowy Baloch resistance organisation on February 2 and released him after keeping him in captivity for two months. AFP/Reuters add: The 41-year-old man was kidnapped in an area where ethnic Baloch groups and fighters linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are known to operate, around 80km from the border with Afghanistan. His abduction comes seven weeks after an American UN official was released following a two-month hostage ordeal that was claimed by a shadowy Baloch group trying to extract concessions from the central government. The tourists had left Quetta and were heading for Iran, said Karar Shah, a police officer from Dalbandin, where the tourists alerted the Pakistani authorities to the abduction. The incident happened near Landi and the French told us six men armed with Kalashnikovs stopped them and then one of them was taken away at gunpoint in a vehicle, Shah told AFP. The kidnappers ordered the rest of the party to continue their journey. Police said the other French man was not targeted because he was handicapped and that the children were aged two and five years old. Contacted by AFP, the French Embassy in Islamabad said it was unable to either confirm or deny the incident. The French tourists were in an area fraught with danger where foreign embassies advise nationals not to travel. In recent months the party had travelled through Iran, India and Pakistan, said a senior police official on condition of anonymity. Polish geologist Piotr Stanczak, 42, was working for an oil and natural gas exploration company when he was kidnapped in the northwest last September. He was beheaded by the Taliban in February. District police chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, told Reuters foreigners were supposed to inform the authorities while visiting Balochistan but the French tourists did not do so. They were travelling without any escort. We are trying to recover the missing man as early as possible. In Paris, the French Foreign Ministry confirmed the kidnapping of the tourist, adding that it was doing all it can to secure his release. Today, we learnt that a French tourist has been abducted in the south of Pakistan, it said in a statement. Since we were told about this, French authorities, notably Frances Embassy in Islamabad and the foreign ministrys crisis centre, are fully mobilised. French authorities, notably the French Embassy in Islamabad and the crisis centre of the Foreign Ministry, have been fully mobilised, the statement said.