GENEVA, Nov 20, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The United Nations voiced alarm Thursday at the apparent kidnapping of a Guinean opposition activist's children and demanded a prompt and impartial investigation.

Elie Kamano, a famous singer and government critic who lives in exile, said on social media Sunday that two of his children, aged 14 and 16, plus a 16-year-old nephew, and a cousin had been abducted.

"Men in balaclavas entered my home" in the capital Conakry on Saturday night, the singer said in a video.

Seif Magango, a spokesman for the UN rights office, said in a statement Thursday that "the apparent enforced disappearance of (Kamano's) family members is deeply alarming".

He said a seven-year-old was also taken but then released.

The UN rights office, he said, was urging "the authorities to take all necessary steps to ensure their immediate and safe return... and to conduct a prompt, thorough and impartial investigation into their disappearance and bring those responsible to justice".

This latest kidnapping has sparked uproar in a country accustomed to disappearances of junta opponents, whose whereabouts often remain unknown.

The UN rights office on Thursday also called "on the authorities to disclose the fate and whereabouts of at least five other individuals we believe may have been subjected to enforced disappearance".

In September, UN rights chief Volker Turk said he was aware of at least 10 individuals whose fates remain unknown following arrest by security forces in Guinea.

Since coming to power in a 2021 coup, junta head General Mamady Doumbouya has increasingly restricted freedoms, while enforced disappearances and abductions have multiplied.

Authorities have consistently claimed to know nothing about the cases.