Five abducted oil workers freed in Sudan
November 19, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Five oil workers, two of them foreigners, arrived in the Sudanese capital on Monday after a hostage ordeal of nearly a month, an industry official said.
“They are safe and sound. Some have already been reunited with their families. The Egyptian and Iraqi engineers will leave the country on Tuesday,” the unnamed official said.
Darfur rebels abducted Joseph William Samuel from Egypt, Ahmed Heyman Mohammed from Iraq and three Sudanese technicians in an attack on an oil field in the adjacent Kordofan region on Oct. 23.
Early last week, the rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement who seized the five announced that they handed them over to leaders of the Arab Masiriya tribe so that they could be passed on to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
But on Friday the independent Khartoum newspaper Al-Sudani reported that the Masiriya were demanding satellite phones and a $500,000 ransom to free the hostages. But, the rebels denied this report.
The industry official gave no details of the circumstances of the hostages’ release, saying only that they were able to return to the capital with the help of their employer, oil firm Schlumberger.
At the weekend, the JEM accused the Sudanese government, which has relied on Arab militia allies in its four-and-a-half-year war against ethnic minority rebels in Darfur, of obstructing the release of the five oil workers.
The five were seized from a facility at Defra, run by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, a consortium involving China’s CNPC (0135.HK), India’s ONGC (500312.BY), Malaysia’s Petronas and state-owned Sudapet.
The oilfield produces more than half of Sudan’s output of some 500,000 barrels of oil a day, most of which is exported to China.
The JEM had warned it would attack foreign oil companies and target Chinese firms in particular because they say they supply weapons to Khartoum.
Beijing has been accused of failing to exert pressure on Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to stop the conflict in Darfur, where at least 200,000 people have died and more than 2 million have been displaced, according to U.N. figures.
(AFP)