October 19, 2009 - The Daily Star - Sudan 2 aid workers abducted in Darfur

Two aid workers abducted in Darfur set free after 107 days
Minister insists no ransom was paid for release


KHARTOUM: Two members of Irish aid agency GOAL abducted at gunpoint in Sudan’s Darfur region in July were freed early Sunday after more than 100 days in captivity, a Sudanese minister told AFP.

“They are free, they are in good health,” said State Humanitarian Affairs Minister Abdel Baqi Gilani.

Irish national Sharon Commins, 33, and Ugandan Hilda Kawuki, 42, were abducted in the North Darfur town of Kutum on July 3. They were taken by a gang of armed men from a compound run by GOAL.

“No ransom was paid,” Gilani stressed, adding that local tribal chiefs had pressured the abductors to free their hostages.

Gilani said the two women were in Kutum and were due later Sunday to fly to Khartoum before returning to their respective countries.

“We are all relieved,” John O’Shea, president of GOAL told AFP.

“We don’t yet know when they will go home but we hope it is as soon as possible,” he said by telephone.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the kidnappers had late on Saturday contacted its representatives in Kutum to say they were ready to free the hostages.

“Last night we received a phone call from the kidnappers saying they were ready to hand over the two ladies,” ICRC spokesman Saleh Dabbakeh told AFP.

“We did not participate in the negotiations in any way,” he added.

Commins’s mother said that she was “absolutely overjoyed” at the news, while the Irish government also welcomed the releases.

Agatha Commins said she had spoken to her daughter, who was “exhausted.”

“Oh my God, can you imagine, we just leapt out of bed when we heard the phone. We were just absolutely overjoyed,” she told Ireland’s state broadcaster RTE.

She was informed of the release by Gilani and spoke to her daughter shortly afterward.

“The phone call last night was just to say ‘Hello Mum, I’m out and free and how is Dad and how are the boys?’ She is just so exhausted. There is just so much going on around her. It was a very short call,” Commins said.

Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin, who had travelled to Khartoum last month in an effort to secure the release of the two women, said he was “personally delighted and extremely relieved.”

“I want to pay a personal tribute to the two women who have undergone such a difficult ordeal. Their personal courage and resilience has helped them through what must have been a traumatic experience,” he said in a statement.

The two aid workers spent over 100 days in captivity, the longest endured by foreign aid staff in Darfur since the conflict erupted in the western region in early 2003.

Until March, no aid worker had been held in Darfur for longer than 24 hours.

However, the International Criminal Court in March issued an arrest warrant against President Omar al-Bashir for alleged war crimes in Darfur, triggering a sharp downturn in Sudan’s relations with foreign relief organizations.

Two members of Doctors without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) and French aid agency Aide Medicale Internationale (AMI) had been kidnapped in March and April then released after spending three days and 26 days respectively in captivity.

Sudanese authorities had not punished those responsible for the kidnap which shook the aid workers community in Darfur.

Gilani said on Sunday that the kidnappers of the latest kidnapping must be brought to justice.

“They must be punished otherwise there will be no more order” in Darfur, he told AFP.

Two civil employees for the UN-African Union joint peacekeeping force in Darfur kidnapped last August in Zalingei in west Darfur are still in the hands of their abductors. They are the only hostages still kidnapped in Darfur.

The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million fled their homes since ethnic minority rebels in Darfur rose up against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum in February 2003.

The government says the figure is exaggerated and that only 10,000 people have been killed.


South Sudan attack kills 7, raises fears of escalation


JUBA, Sudan: Armed men raided a South Sudan village, killing seven people and burning 120 houses, a government official said on Sunday, in an attack which raised fears that inter-tribal violence will escalate.

The United Nations says the violence, fuelled largely by cattle raids and revenge attacks, has already killed more than 1,200 people this year. Analysts believe that the insecurity could affect elections next year and a southern referendum on secession in 2011.

Tut Nyang, a local official from Jonglei state, said the latest attack happened on Friday night. “The attackers … killed seven and wounded nine,” he said.

“This is retaliation,” he said. “They said that they will continue attacking but we don’t know if they will continue attacking this place or other places.” South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has blamed his former Northern foes for arming rival militias in an attempt to destabilize the South before the elections due in April 2010. Khartoum denies this.

But some Southern politicians say the violence stems from rival locals vying to cement support before the vote. UN sources say the violence seems largely local, caused by a security vacuum in the remote area where southern authorities rarely venture.

Long-standing tribal rivalries have been exacerbated by decades of civil war leaving a mass of angry, armed young men. The semi-autonomous Southern government set up under a 2005 North-South peace deal has struggled to establish order outside. – Reuters