French ACF denies workers kidnapped in Sudan’s Darfur

Feb 3, 2006 (PARIS) — The French aid group Action Against Hunger (ACF) on Friday denied a Sudanese media report that eight of its workers had been kidnapped by armed men in the country’s troubled western Darfur region.

“There was indeed a security incident on February 2 on the outskirts of Al-Feshir (western Sudan). Two of the six vehicles in the convoy were seized, but the rest left without difficulty,” a spokesman for the group told AFP.

“No one was injured and no one was kidnapped,” he said.

Sudan’s official news agency SUNA reported Friday that eight aid workers thought to belong to ACF were kidnapped Thursday near Al-Feshir by armed men linked to rebel movements in the region.

SUNA said the team had called their Al-Feshir office to say they were in danger and failed to make further contact.

The Darfur conflict, which broke out in February 2003, has pitted rebel groups, campaigning for a greater share of the power and wealth of Sudan, against the government in Khartoum and its affiliated Arab Janjaweed militias.

The fighting and humanitarian crisis in the province has claimed 300,000 lives, displacing more than two million people.

(ST/AFP)