news French aid group says a Canadian among 2 workers kidnapped in Sudan

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French aid group says a Canadian among 2 workers kidnapped in Sudan



Sun Apr 5, 5:11 PM





By Sarah El Deeb, The Associated Press


KHARTOUM, Sudan - Two foreign aid workers, one of them a Canadian, have been kidnapped in the Darfur region of Sudan, their France-based employer and Sudanese officials said Sunday.

The Canadian and a French woman from International Medical Aid were seized late Saturday along with two Sudanese security guards, who were later released in Ed al-Fursan in South Darfur, said Gen. Fatah al-Rahman, police chief in South Darfur.

"It is not yet clear who is behind the kidnapping and what do they want," al-Rahman told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Nyala, capital of South Darfur.

Ed al-Fursan is largely populated by nomadic Arab tribes.

There has been no contact with the kidnappers, Al-Rahman said. "We are doing everything we can to find them. We care about them and their safety."

This is the second kidnapping of foreign aid workers in Darfur in a month, and it deals another blow for humanitarian efforts in the country.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir expelled 13 foreign humanitarian organizations from the country after an international court issued a warrant for his arrest on March 4. The International Criminal Court accuses al-Bashir of orchestrating atrocities against Darfur's ethnic African population in the region's six-year separatist war.

On March 11, three aid workers from Canada, France and Italy were kidnapped in Darfur and released four days later. Government officials said the kidnappers were retaliating for the arrest warrant against al-Bashir.

International Medical Aid said the two workers abducted Saturday were taken from the group's compound by armed men.

"The abducted staffers are among five expatriates working in the region for the organization," said the aid group's spokesman, Frederic Mar.

Two Sudanese staff of International Medical Aid were killed in February in a bandit attack on a southern Darfur road, officials added.