Eastern Sudan rebels release three politicians

Sept 7, 2005 (KHARTOUM) — Rebels from eastern Sudan released three ruling party politicians, kidnapped in May as they returned from a conference in the region, a senior local official told Reuters on Wednesday.

The three men arrived in Port Sudan on Tuesday after rebels released them without preconditions following mediation efforts by the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC). “They are free now,” Red Sea state governor Hatim al-Wasiyla told Reuters. “The Red Cross facilitated contacts between the two sides and carried out mediation.”

The three men, politicians from the National Congress Party, were kidnapped after they left a government-organised conference in the town of Kassala near the Eritrean border on May 24.

“The rebels didn’t want money or anything for releasing the men … They took them to make a statement, to say ‘We are here’,” Wasiyla said.

The eastern rebel groups — the Free Lions and the Beja Congress — have clashed sporadically with government forces.

The Justice and Equality Movement, one of the two main Darfur rebel groups, has said it joined forces with the eastern rebels to kidnap the politicians.

Rebels from Darfur, in the west of Sudan, took up arms in early 2003. Tens of thousands have died in the conflict and around 2 million have been forced from their homes.

Opposition groups in the east and west of the country accuse the government of neglecting their regions and concentrating on the north, where most of the ruling elite come from.

Analysts fear the east has the potential to escalate as Darfur has done.

(Reuters)