Three UN aid workers kidnapped in Sudan's Darfur region

An armed group yesterday abducted three aid workers with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Sudan’s western Darfur region, local authorities said on Monday.

The three workers included two Nepalese and one Sudanese. The government spokesman Abdalá Mustafa Yarelnabi told reporters that the three officials were kidnapped in the region bordering Chad, on Sunday.

The victims, work for the UNHCR office in Al Yeneina, the western capital of Darfur, and were intercepted by the armed men as they returned from work outside the city.

The abduction of aid workers is common in Darfur, which has been affected by conflict for more than 13 years.

The war in Darfur is a major armed conflict in the region, it began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups began fighting the government, which they accused of oppressing Darfur’s non-Arab population.

The ensuing clashes resulted in massive deaths and displacement, the reason for which the Sudanese leader, Omar al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.