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| Africa Horn |
| Darfur aid workers freed for Žhumanitarian reasonsŽ |
| 2009-05-02 |
| [Beirut Daily Star: Region] Two kidnapped foreign-aid workers freed after being held in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region for more than three weeks were back in the capital Khartoum on Thursday, a Sudanese official said. "They arrived in Khartoum last night," the senior official told AFP, requesting anonymity. He said that an adviser to French President Nicolas Sarkozy was expected to arrive in the capital on Thursday to meet the two women, from France and from Canada, whose release was announced by their kidnappers on Wednesday. A senior official in Sudan's Foreign Ministry confirmed on Wednesday that the two aid workers had been released and were in good health. The French relief group Aide Medicale Internationale (AMI), for which the pair work, confirmed the release. "I can confirm they've been freed," spokesman Frederic Mar told AFP. The two women "must be distressed but their health seems to be alright," he said. French national Claire Dubois and Canadian Stephanie Jodoin were seized on April 4 from their office in Ed al-Fursan, south of the South Darfur state capital Nyala, about 100 kilometers from the Chadian border. The identity, motivation and demands of the kidnappers, who call themselves the Falcons for the Liberation of Africa, remained sketchy. "We freed them for humanitarian reasons ... and because we wanted to give France the opportunity to find a solution to the problem of the children in eastern Chad," one kidnapper told AFP by satellite phone on Wednesday. The Falcons said previously that they targeted AMI in protest at what they called the kidnapping of Darfuri children. Chad jailed six workers with a French aid group, Zoe's Arc, in December 2007 after convicting them of trying to take 103 Darfur refugee children to France illegally. Chadian Premier Idriss Deby Itno pardoned the six within months of their imprisonment. Sudanese media had reported that the kidnappers were demanding a ransom, but they denied this, saying they wanted a retrial of the Zoe's Arc workers. The Canadian hostage, Jodoin, had told AFP by telephone two weeks ago that Dubois was suffering from a fever, but the kidnappers said on Wednesday that the two women had seen a doctor and were in good health. The abduction was the second such act in Darfur since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant on March 4 for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Four workers with Doctors Without Borders, three of them foreigners, were kidnapped at gunpoint from their Darfur home on March 11. They were freed four days later. Sudan expelled 13 aid agencies from Darfur right after the ICC issued its warrant. |
| Posted by:Fred |