Sudanese hostages return home from Iraq after release

Jan 4, 2005 (KHARTOUM) — The five employees of the Sudanese Embassy in Baghdad returned home Wednesday, after their kidnappers released them as part of a deal with their government, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Sudan procured the release of the five after it agreed to close its embassy in Baghdad as the kidnapping group, al-Qaida in Iraq, had demanded.

The five hostages — who included the embassy’s second secretary, Abdel-Moneim Mohammed el-Toum — were reported kidnapped on Dec. 24 and freed on Sunday. They returned to Khartoum via Jordan.

A sixth Sudanese, who was initially reported kidnapped, managed to escape, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. The man, a friend of the embassy personnel, is believed to have remained in Iraq.

Al-Qaida in Iraq had set a deadline of Dec. 31 for killing the hostages unless Sudan publicly declared it would sever relations with Baghdad.

Al-Qaida in Iraq has kidnapped and killed a string of Arab diplomats and embassy employees in a campaign to intimidate Arab governments from restoring full diplomatic relations with Iraq.

In July, al-Qaida abducted the top Egyptian envoy in Baghdad and two Algerian diplomats. It later announced they had been killed. The group also snatched two Moroccan embassy employees in June and said that it had sentenced them to death, though it never stated whether it carried out the sentences.

(AP/ST)