Three foreign aid workers abducted in Sudan’s Darfur region have been released unharmed, three days after their capture at gunpoint led international aid groups to question how they can continue to work in the area.
Sudanese TV showed the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) workers — a Canadian nurse, an Italian doctor and a French project coordinator — stepping off a military helicopter at El Fasher airport in North Darfur with the local governor.
“I would like to say to everybody we are safe, we are here, we are in good health,” said Raphael Meunier, the French coordinator, speaking on Sudanese TV after their release on Saturday.
“We will be more talkative a bit later on, now our first thoughts are for our families,” he said.
The governor, Osman Kebir, said Wednesday’s kidnapping was carried out by a group seeking to retaliate for the International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes in Darfur.
Kebir said no ransom was paid to the group, which he said called itself the Eagles of al-Bashir.
“They said they released them for the country’s sake and they kidnapped them for the sake of the country,” he said.
The Sudanese government threw 13 international aid agencies out of the country after the March 4 warrant, accusing them of being the court’s spies. The government says it had nothing to do with the abduction and condemned it.
The Netherlands-based court accuses al-Bashir of orchestrating atrocities against civilians in Darfur, where his Arab-led government has been battling ethnic African rebels since 2003. Up to 300,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million have been driven from their homes.
Sudan denies the charges and says the figures are exaggerated.
The government warned that issuing the warrant could lead to spontaneous revenge attacks by enraged Sudanese, though it pledged to defend aid workers and diplomats in the country.
The freed aid workers were from the Belgian branch of MSF. The branch was not among the agencies Sudan ordered out of the country, though two other MSF operations were.
The director of the group’s Belgian section said the workers’ release was a relief, but he called the kidnapping a “gross violation.”
“Our independent medical work must be respected if we are to continue working in conflict areas to save the lives of those who suffer most,” Christopher Stokes said.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
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SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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