ABDUCTED DARFUR AID WORKERS FREED

Two aid workers who were kidnapped in Sudan’s Darfur region more than three months ago have said they are “thrilled” to be released.

Irish citizen Sharon Commins, 32, and her Ugandan colleague Hilda Kawuki, 42, were working for the Irish charity Goal when seized by gunmen in Kutum in July.

The Sudanese government confirmed the pair were freed early Sunday morning.

The women described their ordeal as a “difficult time” and thanked all those who had worked to secure their release.

In a joint statement released through the GOAL charity, the women said they were “naturally thrilled to be released after such a long period in captivity”.

“We know it must have been a traumatic period for our families especially and for our friends,” they said.

“It was of course, a difficult time – but we found strength in each other and in our friendship.”

They added that they could “hardly wait to get home” to spend time with their families.

Sudan’s state Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Abdel Baqi al-Jailani, stressed that “no ransom was paid,” and said local tribe leaders had put pressure on the kidnappers to release the workers.

Reports earlier in the year had suggested the kidnappers made a $2m ransom demand in return for their safe release.

The Sudanese government said the kidnappers were bandits who would not be granted an amnesty for releasing the aid workers, the BBC’s James Copnall in Khartoum said.

The two women have spent the longest time in captivity of any foreigners in Darfur, our correspondent added.

They were taken hostage at gunpoint at an aid compound in Kutum on 3 July.

Speaking in Dublin, Ms Commin’s mother Agatha said she was “absolutely overjoyed” at the news of her daughter’s release.

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DARFUR REBEL GROUP RELEASE 60 SOLDIERS, POLICE

A major Darfur rebel group released 60 captured government soldiers and police on Saturday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said, a move that could help clear a logjam in troubled peace talks. The insurgent Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) handed the captives to Red Cross officers who passed them on to government officials on Saturday afternoon, the humanitarian group said.

“JEM has released 55 Sudan Armed Forces soldiers and five policemen,” Red Cross spokesman Saleh Dabbakeh told Reuters. Talks between JEM and Sudan’s government, which started in Doha in February, have stalled over the timing of confidence building measures, including the release of each other’s prisoners and a ceasefire.

JEM has said it wants Khartoum to release captured rebel fighters before any ceasefire is agreed, while Khartoum says it needs an end to hostilities ahead of other moves. The rebel group told Reuters the release took place close to the north Darfur settlement of Kutum, adding it was ready to free more captives if the government reciprocated by releasing imprisoned JEM fighters.

“We are fulfilling the goodwill agreements we signed in Doha,” senior JEM official Ahmed Tugud said. “We still have many government captives and are willing to release them if similar steps are taken by the other side.” No one was immediately available from Sudan’s government to comment on the release.

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KIDNAPPERS REQUEST FOR $2 MILLION

Kidnappers of two female aid workers in Sudan’s Darfur region have demanded $2 million for their release, but the government is determined not to pay, a minister said on Tuesday. The two workers for Irish aid group GOAL were seized by armed men on July 3 from their base in the north Darfur town of Kutum — the third abduction of foreign humanitarian staff in the region in four months.

“The kidnappers are asking for $2 million. But our policy is not to pay ransom. We feel that would encourage others to do the same,” said state minister for humanitarian affairs Abdel Baqi al-Jailani.

The minister said Darfur officials were using local leaders to negotiate with the kidnappers, adding he was still expecting a positive outcome. “Our main priority remains the safety of the two women”

Irish negotiators and government officials have sent teams to Khartoum and El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, to help free the women, named by GOAL as Hilda Kawuki, 42, from Uganda, and Sharon Commins, 32, from Dublin. Two groups of foreign aid workers kidnapped in Darfur earlier this year were released unharmed after a period of negotiation.

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MBEKI: AU YET TO TAKE A STANCE ON ICC

An African Union (AU) panel led by South Africa’s former President Thabo Mbeki said it had not taken a stance on an international court’s indictment of Sudanese officials including President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

Fighting between the government, its allies and a myriad of rebel groups in Sudan’s western region has claimed as many as 300,000 people, according to the United Nations, but Khartoum says only 10,000 have died since clashes broke out in 2003.

“The panel has not taken a position whether or not the intervention of the (International Criminal Court) in Sudan or the arrest warrants the court has issued are appropriate,” it said in a statement.

The ICC has indicted Bashir on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and torture.

He has dismissed the allegations as part of a Western conspiracy, and the AU has sought a deferment of the indictment, saying it has complicated peace efforts in Darfur.

An AU summit in Libya last week voted to suspend cooperation with ICC in the matter.

Mbeki told reporters on Friday that his panel of eight eminent Africans had consulted widely inside and outside Sudan.

“The consensus reached is that those charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity should appear in court and defend themselves,” he said. “The warrant has been issued. There is nothing that can be done.”

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AU HALTS COOPERATION WITH ICC OVER BASHIR

The African Union says it will halt co-operation with the International Criminal Court over its decision to charge Sudan’s leader with war crimes.

President Omar al-Bashir was indicted over alleged atrocities in the Darfur region in March.

But delegates to an AU meeting in Libya agreed a resolution saying they would not co-operate in his arrest.

Analysts say the move means the Sudanese leader can travel across the continent without fear of arrest.

The Sudanese government has been fighting rebels in Darfur since 2003.

The ICC has accused President Bashir of two counts of war crimes – intentionally directing attacks on civilians and pillage – as well as five counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and torture, related to the conflict.

He denies the allegations, saying the state has a responsibility to fight rebels.

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SUDANESE MINISTER LOOKS UP TO OBAMA FOR A NEW BEGINNING

U.S. President Barack Obama is turning the page in the West’s troubled relations with Sudan by taking a more constructive approach, a senior Sudanese official said on Thursday. The International Criminal Court has indicted the Sudanese president for war crimes in the Darfur region and European officials say Khartoum is jeopardising a peace deal that ended a separate conflict between Sudan’s north and south.

But Salman al-Wasilla, Sudan’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs, told Reuters in an interview the Obama administration was showing a readiness to break with the past. “We are now witnessing a new era (with) the coming of Obama to office, who is now starting to talk about understanding and respect and support and there was a lack of this before,” he said on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Libya.

Obama this year appointed retired Air Force General Scott Gration, a close adviser, as his special envoy to Sudan and the United States last month hosted a conference of officials from Sudan’s north and south to try to keep their peace deal on track. Attacking Western policies on Sudan over the past few years, al-Wasilla said his oil producing country had complied with international demands over Darfur and ended fighting with the rebels in the south but has not been rewarded.

“When we signed the peace agreement (with the southern rebels) we were promised the lifting of sanctions, we were promised debt relief,” he said. “What has been achieved in four years, it should be rewarded … This is what we need: encouragement and not sanctions and allegations and pressure,” he said.

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SUDAN AND DARFUR REBEL END TALK WITHOUT A DEAL

Talks between Sudan’s government and a Darfur rebel group have been adjourned without agreement, both sides said on Friday, blaming each other for the impasse. The move will be seen as a setback to the United States and mediators from the United Nations and African Union who have been stepping up pressure for a resolution to the festering six-year conflict in Sudan’s remote west.

Khartoum has been holding on-and-off discussions with the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) — Darfur’s most militarily active insurgent organisation — in Qatar since February. The discussions, also brokered by Qatari mediators, are supposed to pave the way to full peace talks, but have stalled on arguments over a series of confidence-building measures including the exchange of prisoners.

The spokesman for the Sudan government side, Al-Shartawi Ja’afar Abd-al-Hakam, told state radio the talks had reached stalemate following JEM’s refusal to let other organisations and rebel groups take part. JEM dismissed the accusation, saying Khartoum was refusing to honour an earlier deal to free JEM prisoners and improve access for humanitarian groups in Darfur.

“There is no point continuing when the government is adamant it will not go through with the goodwill agreement,” senior JEM official Al-Tahir al-Feki told Reuters by phone from his base in Britain. He said the talks would be adjourned for two months for the negotiating teams to consult with their leaders.

JEM has clashed with Sudan’s army a number of times since the beginning of the talks, most recently over control of settlements in North Darfur, on a strategic road leading to the border with neighbouring Chad.

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SUDAN TRIBESMEN ATTACK UN BARGES CARRYING FOOD

Armed tribesmen attacked UN barges carrying food aid in southern Sudan, with unconfirmed reports of casualties, UN officials have said. Gunmen from the Jikany Nuer ethnic group attacked the 27 boats near the town of Nasir, near Sudan’s eastern border with Ethiopia, on Friday. The barges were travelling to the town of Akobo when they were attacked and 16 have returned to Nasir, the UN said.

Locals said several people had been killed, the AFP news agency reported. “We don’t have information on how many people were killed or injured. But everyone we have talked to has described it as an attack,” Michelle Iseminger of the UN’s World Food Programme said. The boats had been travelling on the Sobat tributary, part of the White Nile river system.

The boats had been carrying sorghum and other food aid to refugees who had fled tribal fighting in the south of Sudan. “There are many wounded in the hospital including soldiers, and many killed, there are dozens dead,” said an unnamed Nasir resident quoted by AFP. The boats had included an escort of soldiers from the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army.

The river, which is the only way to deliver aid to the poorly-developed south of the country, was closed earlier this year because of tensions in the area. A 22-year war between the Islamic north and the Christian and animist South ended in 2005. But correspondents say tension remains and many fear renewed fighting ahead of a referendum on the south’s potential full independence due in 2011.

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AID GROUPS RETURN TO DARFUR

Sudan has authorised four aid agencies expelled from the country in March to return to troubled Darfur, says the UN’s humanitarian chief John Holmes. The four groups – named as Care International, Save the Children, Mercy Corps, and Padco – were among 13 organisations expelled in March. Mr Holmes said all the groups had the opportunity to seek readmission.

About 300,000 people have died and two million been displaced in the six-year conflict in Darfur, the UN estimates. Mr Holmes said Sudan had agreed to allow NGOs to go back to Darfur provided they registered under slightly changed names and logos.

“That possibility is there for all the organisations which were expelled and some of them already have taken advantage of it. They now got very recently new registrations and will be restarting their operations,” he said. The Sudanese government expelled the aid groups in March, following the announcement that President Omar al-Bashir was being indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes.

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DARFUR REBEL AGREES TO APPEAR BEFORE ICC

A Darfur rebel charged with war crimes has been ordered to appear before the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday, The Hague-based court says.

Bahr Idriss Abu Garda is charged with taking part in an attack in north Darfur in 2007, during which 12 African Union (AU) peacekeepers were killed.

Mr Abu Garda is the first Darfur rebel to have voluntarily answered a summons from the ICC, the court said.

The former senior member of the Jem rebel group denies any involvement.

“I will go, no problem. I know I was not involved,” Mr Abu Garda, who now heads the United Resistance Movement (URF) rebel group, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have died in a six-year conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region and millions more have been displaced.

Mr Abu Garda was due to appear for an initial hearing on Monday afternoon, the ICC said in a statement.

It said he was charged with three war crimes allegedly committed during the attack at the Haskanita AU camp in September 2007.

No arrest warrant was issued as Mr Abu Garda had shown a willingness to appear before the ICC, prosecutors said.

Jem (Justice and Equality Movement) said that they had helped collect the evidence against Mr Abu Garda.

In March, Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir was indicted on war crime charges, which were the first issued by the ICC against a sitting president.

In a BBC interview earlier this month, President Bashir dismissed the charges as propaganda.

The Aegis Trust, a genocide campaign group, said Mr Abu Garda’s arrival at The Hague increased the pressure on others, particularly the Sudanese government, to follow suit.

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