Kidnappers free Swiss-based relief group workers: Medair
KHARTOUM, Nov 23 (AFP) — Kidnappers have released four Sudanese nationals who were working in western Sudan for the Swiss-based humanitarian group Medair, the group said from its office here Sunday.
“They were handed over to us yesterday evening” in Chad, an employee in the Medair office here told AFP, adding she also believed another person working for a Sudanese government organization had been released with them.
The group was now traveling by car to El-Geneina, the main town in Sudan’s West Darfur State which lies near the border with Chad, the employee said.
No other details were immediately available.
The Al-Sahafa newspaper reported late last week that a rebel faction said its fighters abducted the four workers and another Sudanese while they were distributing food aid in western Sudan and would release them in Chad.
It said the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which is fighting to end the Darfur region’s economic neglect by Khartoum, said it was holding the five and would hand them over anywhere the government chose inside Chad.
The newspaper listed no conditions for their release, nor did it state the reasons for the abductions.
Medair said last Tuesday that four of its Sudanese workers and a government official did not return from a mission near the town of Kolbus on November 11, and that contacts were underway for their release.
Humanitarian Aid Commissioner (HAC) Sulaf Eddin Salih told Wednesday’s Al Rai Al Aam daily that Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) rebels had abducted the five relief workers on November 13 in the Kulbus area.
One of the five Sudanese workers belonged to the HAC’s department and the other four to Medair, Salih was quoted as telling the independent daily.
Unlike the SLM, the JEM has not signed a ceasefire agreement with the Sudanese government. Both share the same aims of ending the region’s marginalization.
Since February, the western Darfur region has been the scene of clashes between the SLM and government forces backed by local militias.