Three Western aid workers kidnapped in Darfur are "well" (1st Lead)

Mar 12, 2009, 13:08 GMT

Paris/Brussels - The three Western aid workers kidnapped in the strife-torn Sudanese province of Darfur are in 'good health', officials from the charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), for whom they work, said in Brussels on Thursday.

'We spoke with one of our colleagues last night. At that stage they had been given food, had been well treated during the kidnapping and were in good health,' Christopher Stokes, director general of the charity's Belgian chapter said.

Stokes said the kidnapped aid workers had been 'moved around in a car', adding that no fresh contacts had been established since Wednesday.

As a safety precaution, MSF was pulling all of its teams out of Darfur and sending them to the Sudanese capital Khartoum, Stokes said.

The Canadian nurse, Italian doctor and French administrator, who were kidnapped late Wednesday at Sharif Umra, all worked for the Belgian section of the organization.

MSF said in a statement released in Paris earlier in the day that two Sudanese staff members had also been abducted, but were immediately set free.

MSF said the families of those kidnapped had been notified. No group has apparently yet taken responsibility for the abductions.

The situation for aid workers in Darfur became tense after the Sudanese government ordered all aid organizations to leave Darfur after the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.