Geneva - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has located four doctors from northern Sri Lanka who were missing for more than a week, the group said Friday.

Three of them were being held in detention, Marcal Izard, an ICRC spokesman told the German Press Agency, dpa, and that the Red Cross had met with them in private on Thursday.

A fourth doctor, who was wounded, was in hospital, but ICRC staff have not met him yet.

This was the first confirmation on their fate after contact with them had been lost on Saturday.

Physicians for Human Rights, an American advocacy group, said earlier this week it was "deeply concerned about the arrest and detention under illegitimate charges" of three Sri Lankan doctors.

The doctors provided information on the events inside a small strip of land where the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) made their last stance against approaching government forces.

Journalists and aid workers were barred from entering the enclave.

The doctors were arrested by Sri Lankan authorities as they tried to leave the conflict zone. Reports said they were accused of "spreading lies."

Izard said ICRC policy is not to comment on detention conditions. (dpa)