Aid workers kidnapped in Darfur
2009-07-04 08:25
Khartoum - Two women aid workers from Ireland and Uganda were kidnapped on Friday by armed men in Sudan's volatile Darfur region, the scene of Africa's longest running conflict, officials told AFP.
"Unidentified armed men came to the quarters of the (Irish) NGO Goal at Kutum in Northern Darfur," the source said. "They took a Sudanese watchman, an Irishwoman and a Ugandan woman. The watchman was later freed."
A UN official also confirmed the kidnapping. Ireland's foreign ministry also confirmed that a national was abducted on Friday.
"Two employees were kidnapped from our offices at 20:30 local time (19:30 GMT). We have no information about the identity of the abductors or their motives," Flora Hills, the head of Goal in Sudan, told AFP.
Hills confirmed the nationalities of the two workers. Sudanese officials were unavailable for comment and no group has yet claimed responsibility for the abduction.
Goal has been present in Kutum since, some 200km from the Chadian border, since February 2004. It distributes seeds and constructs pit latrines and wells for thousands displaced by the conflict.
It was the third kidnapping of foreign humanitarian workers in Darfur since a March 4 arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court against Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir for alleged war crimes in Darfur.
The United Nations says up to 300 000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes since ethnic minority rebels in Darfur rose up against the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum in February 2003.
Sudan's government says 10 000 have been killed.
Following the ICC arrest warrant, Sudan expelled 13 foreign non governmental organisations from Darfur - a decision vehemently criticised by the United Nations. Khartoum later allowed Western aid bodies in once again.
Four members of the Doctors Without Borders medical charity: a Frenchman, a Canadian woman, an Italian and a Sudanese national were kidnapped shortly after the ICC arrest warrant but were freed a few days later.
On April 4, a Frenchwoman and a Canadian worker were seized on April 4 in southern Darfur and released three weeks later.
The African Union decided on Friday not to act on an international war crimes warrant as it closed a summit in Libya.
The text also voiced Africa's frustration at the UN Security Council's failure to consider a request to suspend the warrant for one year.
An uprising by ethnic minority rebels in Darfur in February 2003 prompted the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum to recruit militias among the region's Arab tribes to implement a scorched earth policy against ethnic groups suspected of supporting the rebels.
Since abortive peace talks in 2006, the rebellion has fragmented with some minority leaders reconciling with the government and some Arab tribes siding with rebel factions.