Sudanese rebels free eight, including four journalists

LIBREVILLE, Sept 29 (AFP) — Rebels in the Darfur region of western Sudan have freed eight people, four of them journalists, whom they have been holding since mid-August, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Wednesday.

The eight, all Sudanese, were seized on August 18 about 30 kilometres (18 miles) from Nyala, capital of the province of South Darfur. Four worked for a local television station, the others for the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), a Sudanese government organisation.

“On September 18 the ICRC handed over to the HAC a group of eight people until then held by the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA),” the ICRC said in a statement sent from its office in Yaounde, capital of Cameroon, and received by AFP in Libreville.

“The ICRC agreed to act as an impartial intermediary in view of this release… The members of the group were first handed over by the SLA to representatives of the ICRC, who then accompanied them to the HAC ofice in Nyala,” the statement said.

Earlier this month a spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement, the political arm of the SLA and one of two rebel groups in Darfur, had denied holding any journalists.

“No journalist is in our custody. It is all lies and part of the propaganda of the Sudanese government,” Abduljabbar Dofa, a spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), told AFP on September 11.

The two main rebel groups, the SLM/SLA and the Justice and Equality Movement, began an uprising against the government in February 2003.

Between 30,000 and 50,000 people have died in the conflict that has displaced some 1.4 million and forced an estimated 180,000 to flee into neighboring Chad, according to the UN.