Kidnapped Irish aid worker speaks to officials as hopes for release rise

SUDANESE OFFICIALS spoke for the second time yesterday with the Irish aid worker and her Ugandan colleague kidnapped in Darfur last week, a government minister has told The Irish Times.

Sudan’s minister for humanitarian affairs, Abdul-Bagi al-Jailani, said Sharon Commins (32), from Clontarf, Dublin, and her colleague Hilda Kawuki (42) had spoken with officials by telephone yesterday morning.

He said negotiations were continuing with the men who kidnapped the women, who both work for Goal, from their compound in Kutum, a town in north Darfur last Friday evening.

“We have to deal very carefully with this situation, hour by hour, minute by minute, but I think we are doing well,” he said in a telephone interview from Khartoum.

Sudanese authorities are working in co-operation with local tribal chiefs and elders in the area in order to secure the release of the women. “This native administration is very effective. The chiefs are well respected. They know how to deal with this situation through customs and tradition,” Mr Al-Jailani added. “I am quite sure we will soon be celebrating a successful outcome. We are doing our best – we are waiting for good news in two to three days.”

Meanwhile, Sudan’s ambassador to the UK, Omer Mohamed Ahmed Siddig, who was in Dublin for a preplanned official visit yesterday, met the Commins family and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin.