Dutch govt summons Sudan over aid worker detentions

AMSTERDAM, June 1, 2005 (AP) — The Dutch Foreign Ministry Wednesday summoned Sudan’s ambassador to explain the detention of two aid workers held responsible for a report alleging widespread rape, the ministry said.

The ambassador was scheduled to meet later Wednesday with a ministry official who will “express his concern about the situation,” said ministry spokeswoman Esther van Damme.

Sudan’s government was angered by a report released in March by the aid group Medicins Sans Frontieres, or MSF, that detailed hundreds of rapes carried out by government-backed militias in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region.

“Of course it’s not acceptable that aid workers are arrested like this,” Van Damme said.

Sudanese officials questioned and released the U.K.’s Paul Foreman and Dutchman Vincent Hoedt, both working for a Dutch-led MSF operation in Darfur.

A spokeswoman for the Dutch office of MSF said Foreman had been charged with spreading false information.

“We expect that charges will also probably come for Vincent” Hoedt, said MSF spokeswoman Annelies van Dijk. “For the moment they are free on bail.”