Aid workers released unharmed
2002-08-04 12:49
Nairobi - Two aid workers kidnapped in southern Sudan last week arrived in the Kenyan capital Nairobi to a tumultuous welcome on Saturday after being freed by their abductors.
Frankfurt-based Ekkehard Forberg (31), a German national, and his Kenyan colleague Andrew Omwenga (46), employees of the World Vision relief agency, were abducted during an ambush last week in Waat in southern Sudan.
"I am very happy we have got home safely and I thank God that I am alive. Luckily enough, they did not harm us in any way, and I thank everybody who prayed for us," Omwenga said.
Asked whether he would return to southern Sudan, Omwenga said:
"I will definitely go back to help people who are suffering in
southern Sudan. Nobody will assist them if we back out because of
fear."
Officials said that after disembarking from a plane of the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the two were taken from the airport for a hospital check-up pending a reunion with their families.
World Vision President Dean Hirsch said in a statement: "They
appear to be in good condition, despite living on milk for the past five days.
"This is truly an answer to the prayers of many people around
the world over the last several days."
Friendly people
Hirsch said another German also abducted and freed three days
earlier, Steffen Horstmeier, had been released from hospital and
was expected to return to Germany for a reunion with family and
friends.
Horstmeier (31) also said he intended to go back to continue
helping those in desperate need, adding that he was well treated by his captors.
"Generally, they were very friendly people who seemed to have
been forced to do something by their commanders, who needed some
recognition.
"They never mistreated me and even delivered a letter I had
written to tell the outside world that I was alive," he said.
Recounting their ordeal, Omwenga said: "We were ambushed by more than 10 armed men at our work station at around 03:00
and ordered to leave at gunpoint."
Horstmeier said: "I heard gunshots. Then five people tore into
my tent, but I don't know how many came and forced me out at
gunpoint. We then walked for more than 50km, sleeping in the grass for the first day."
"The gunshots that I heard, it seems, are the ones that killed
our brother Kibbe," said Omwenga, referring to another Kenyan
community health worker, Charles Kibbe, who died during the attack on the camp.
Relief
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer expressed his relief.
"The government is most relieved at the release of these two
humanitarian workers. It is grateful to all those who contributed
to the happy outcome of this case, especially the United nations,
the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Sudanese
government," Fischer said in a statement.
World Vision started work in Sudan in the 1970s and most
recently its work in Waat and other districts in the Upper Nile
region have focused on child malnutrition, immunisation and primary health care.
Communities in the Upper Nile face fluctuating droughts and
floods, exacerbated by a precarious security situation as a result of civil war in Sudan which since 1983 has pitted rebels in the mainly Christian and animist south against the Muslim government in the north.
Nearly two million people have been killed since the fighting
broke out, and at least four million have been displaced. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA