Sudan confirms six Sudanese kidnapped in Irak

Dec 23, 2005 (BAGHDAD) — A Sudanese diplomat and five other Sudanese have been kidnapped in Iraq, the country’s Foreign Ministry said Friday, and one of those kidnapped was able to briefly telephone the country’s mission after he was taken.

A video image aired by Arabic satellite channel Al Arabiya October 30, 2004 shows two masked men pointing rifles at a Sudanese translator, named as Noureddin Zakaria, taken hostage in the Iraqi rebel town of Ramadi by an Iraqi resistance group. (Al Arabiya via Reuters).

Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jamal Mohamed Ibrahim said that among the six kidnap victims were four employees at the country’s diplomatic mission in Baghdad, including the one diplomat, identified as Abdel Moneam Mohammad Tom.

One employee managed to call the Sudanese mission briefly on his cell phone immediately after the kidnapping and talk to the charge d’affaires. But so far, there has been no contact between the kidnappers and the Sudanese government, Ibrahim said.

“We don’t know who they are or what their demands are,” the spokesman said.

Earlier, a Sudanese official had appealed for their release in an interview with the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera television station.

(AP/ST)