Kidnappers free Darfur hostages

Kidnappers have freed two Western female aid workers they captured in the western Darfur region over three weeks ago, the Sudanese…

Kidnappers have freed two Western female aid workers they captured in the western Darfur region over three weeks ago, the Sudanese government confirmed tonight.

Canadian Stephanie Joidon and Frenchwoman Claire Dubois were seized at gunpoint from their compound in the south Darfur settlement of Ed el Fursan on April 4th.

"The Sudanese government confirms the release of the aid workers and we have informed the French government about their release," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

"They are in the Sudanese government's hands in Darfur. They are in good health and they will soon be moved to Khartoum."

The group, which calls itself the Freedom Eagles of Africa, had been demanding that Paris retry members of Zoe's Ark, a French humanitarian group, convicted but later pardoned over the abduction of children from Chad.

Earlier one of the kidnappers said the workers from women's aid group Aide Medicale Internationale (AMI) had been handed over to a tribal leader in Darfur.

Six members of Zoe's Ark were jailed in 2007 for trying to fly children aged between one and 10 out of Chad to Europe.

Chad said they had no authorisation to take the children out of the country. The six, who denied the charges, were sentenced to eight years' hard labour by a Chadian court, but were pardoned in March 2008 by Chadian President Idriss Deby.

Kidnappings of foreign aid workers were almost unheard of in Darfur before a group calling itself the Eagles of Bashir seized four employees of the Belgian arm of Medecins Sans Frontieres in North Darfur last month.

The MSF workers were released unharmed three days later.