News
12-03-2009
Gunmen kidnap foreign aid workers in Darfur
ATP - "They want a ransom in exchange for the (kidnapping) victims," North Darfur governor Osman Mohammed Yusef Kabir was quoted as saying by the Sudan Media Centre, which is close to the intelligence services.
Kabir said he spoke to the kidnappers by phone and that they "affirmed they don?t want to resort to violence... however they demanded a financial ransom to release the victims."
A Canadian nurse, Italian doctor and a French administrator were among five employees of the Belgian branch of MSF who were kidnapped at gunpoint on Wednesday night from their office in North Darfur. The gunmen later released two Sudanese hostages
Earlier the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it was "deeply concerned" about its abducted staff and would pull out nearly all its personnel from war-torn Darfur following Wednesday's attack.
The kidnapping came a week after Sudan ordered out 13 international aid agencies from Darfur after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a war crimes arrest warrant against President Omar al-Beshir.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon again urged Khartoum to rescind its expulsion order and said he was "deeply concerned" by the abductions.
A Sudanese official said the three were "okay" and that the government was working to release them as soon as possible.
"They talked to their colleagues. They are okay. We are working to release them as fast as possible," said Mohammed Abdel Rahman, chief of Sudan's commission for human rights associations.
Since the ICC warrant was issued against Beshir -- the court's first against a serving head of state -- the United Nations and United States have warned about security problems in Sudan and threats to foreign targets.
MSF said the volunteers were seized in Saraf Umra in North Darfur.
"MSF is in the process of pulling its last teams from Darfur," the director general of the group's Belgian branch Christopher Stokes said in Brussels, adding that some would remain to help their kidnapped colleagues.
In Rome, the foreign ministry identified its seized national as Mauro D'Ascanio, 34.
An MSF official in Montreal identified the nurse as Laura Archer and said she has been working for the Canadian branch of MSF since 2006.
A powerful Darfur rebel group accused Arab militiamen allied with Khartoum of kidnapping the aid workers.
Ahmed Hussein, a spokesman with the Justice and Equality Movement, said the area the foreigners were seized was controlled by Musa Hilal, a former commander of an Arab militia who became an advisor to the government.
"Nine people under his leadership went in (the compound). They brought them in a jeep to Gelly, in the northeast of Kebkabiya sector," Hussein said. "We condemn this illegal act."
The Sudanese government has been accused of recruiting and arming Arab militias to combat Darfur rebels.
The French and Dutch branches of MSF were among 13 groups expelled last week after the ICC warrant was issued for Beshir for war crimes and crimes against humanity over the six-year conflict in Darfur.
Khartoum charges that the aid groups collaborated with the ICC, which accuses Beshir of orchestrating a campaign of murder, torture, rape, forcible displacement and pillage in Darfur.
More than 180 foreign aid workers have since left Sudan, according to the United Nations, which has warned that the expulsions put at risk the lives of hundreds of thousands of aid-dependent people.
The United Nations says 300,000 people have died in Darfur from the combined results of war, famine and disease after ethnic Darfur rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Khartoum government in February 2003, complaining of discrimination.
Sudan has denied the charges against Beshir, who seized power in a coup in 1989, and vowed not to cooperate with the ICC.
