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Kidnapped aid workers freed in Darfur
Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:46pm EDT
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By Andrew Heavens
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Three foreign aid workers kidnapped in Sudan's Darfur region were freed on Saturday by captors who said they were protesting over the International Criminal Court's issuing of an arrest warrant against the country's president.
The aid workers from the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) were seized from their base on Wednesday after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of orchestrating war crimes in Darfur.
MSF Belgium's general director Christopher Stokes told a news conference in Brussels MSF had paid no ransom. He said the group was reconsidering its operations at the scene of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
"We are as a movement...not able today to determine the level at which we are able to maintain our assistance in Darfur. This includes all projects in Darfur," he added.
The three were welcomed back in Khartoum by MSF staff. A Sudanese guard held along with them stayed behind in the regional center of El Fasher.
North Darfur governor Osman Yusuf Kibir, who accompanied the freed aid workers to Khartoum, said kidnappers calling themselves the Eagles of Bashir had freed them at an agreed site in north Darfur. Authorities had tried to pursue the captors fleeing to the north-east, but lost them in the mountains.
He said negotiations had begun on Thursday on a telephone number the pro-government kidnappers had left behind.
"They said they kidnapped the foreigners for the sake of the nation and they released them for the sake of the nation. It was an expression of their rejection of the unjust measure against the nation's sovereignty and the symbol of the nation. We condemn that (kidnapping)...We told them it will harm the cause.
"We told them if you want to serve the interest of the nation you should release them. Thank god they did, without any ransom. I repeat there was no ransom, and they made no other demands," he said.
One of the male hostages appeared on state television, which did not name him.
"I just will like to say to everybody we are safe, we are here, we are in good health and we will maybe be more talkative a bit later on," he said.
The seizure of the three foreign staff -- a Canadian nurse, an Italian doctor and a French coordinator -- along with a Sudanese national sent shockwaves through the region's humanitarian community.
ANTAGONISM
Sudan expelled 13 international aid groups from the north of the country after the ICC warrant was issued, accusing them of passing information to the court, an accusation the groups deny. MSF's Dutch and French arms were ordered to leave but its Belgian operation was not expelled.
Aid groups have said they have faced growing antagonism in Darfur since the arrest warrant was issued. Continued...
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