News

A retired Canadian diplomat and his aide have disappeared in west Africa while on a United Nations mission.

Robert Fowler's empty car was found near the capital of Niger on Sunday evening, said UN spokesman Farhan Haq.

Mr. Fowler was in the country as a special UN envoy for Niger.

He was travelling with Louis Guay — a Canadian diplomat who was working for the UN in support of Mr. Fowler.

“We were informed by the authorities in Niger he and an aide and a driver had been travelling in Niger,” Mr. Haq said.

“Their car was found about 45 kilometres northeast of the capital, Niamey, but without the three. The authorities in Niger are trying to locate them.”

Canadian officials there are also involved.

“Our consular officials both in the capital of Niger as well as in other regional offices are actively engaged with both local and UN officials,” Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said in a statement.

Mr. Cannon added that he has spoken with senior UN officials, and that consular officials are in contact with the families of both men to provide assistance and support.

“I want to assure family, friends and all Canadians that we will do everything we can to resolve the situation successfully.”

Mr. Fowler, 64, is a former deputy Defence minister who later served as Canada's ambassador to the United Nations and to Italy.

He has since worked as a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa's new graduate school of public and international affairs.

In July, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed him as special envoy for Niger, a country of about 15 million on the southwest flank of the Sahara.

Since 2007, a group called the Mouvement des Nigeriens pour la Justice has fomented unrest in the northern region of the country.

The group is predominantly made up of Tuaregs, a minority group of nomadic or semi-nomadic people who subsist by with their herds on the fringe of the desert.

Mr. Haq would not comment on who might be responsible for Fowler's disappearance.

“We don't have any solid information on their whereabouts and certainly at this stage we're not speculating what might have happened to them.”

Mr. Fowler has a long history with the UN. Early in his career, he served as first secretary with the Canadian mission to the world body. He would return as ambassador in 1995 and was a member of the Security Council in 1999-2000.

While on the council, he worked on a number of African issues, including efforts to stifle the trade in African blood diamonds.

After his stint at the UN, he helped organize the G8 summit in Kananaskis, Alta., and served as ambassador to Italy.

John Kirton, a political science professor and director of the G8 research group at the University of Toronto, first met Fowler more than 30 years ago.

He recalled Mr. Fowler as “an authentic member” of a privileged class who gave up “lives of wealth and their careers in Canada and went off to Africa to build a better continent to save lives there.”

“It was not just another assignment,” he said of Mr. Fowler, whose early stint as a teacher became a life-long commitment culminating with an Africa Action Plan at the Kananaskis summit.

“It was Fowler who pulled it all together,” Mr. Kirton said.

During his 38 years in the public service, Mr. Fowler acted as a foreign policy adviser to prime ministers Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney and Jean Chrétien.

He was deputy minister of defence 1989-95, during a difficult time when the Somalia affair rocked the department and the military.