Darfur rebels will release five oil hostages

Novrmber 3, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Darfur rebels said on Saturday they would release five hostages they kidnapped after attacking an oil installation in Sudan’s most lucrative area.

The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) attacked the Defra oil field last month and took an Egyptian, an Iraqi and three Sudanese oil workers hostage. It ordered all other oil companies working in the Kordofan region bordering Darfur to leave or beome military targets.

“JEM is releasing all the captives from the oil field … principally for humanitarian reasons and on the call of the Egyptian authorities, our friends,” JEM head Khalil Ibrahim told Reuters from Darfur.

He said the threat against oil companies working in the Kordofan region still stood.

Defra oil field is in Block 4, part of a lucrative consortium called the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company led by China’s CNPC.

The consortium produces at least 265,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Sudan’s sweet Nile Blend crude. Sudan produces at least 500,000 bpd of crude.

Ibrahim said JEM would release the hostages to the United Nations as soon as the world body was ready to receive them.

(Reuters)