(AKI) - International aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is to suspend all its activities in the troubled Darfur region in western Sudan after three of its aid workers were abducted. The organisation said on Thursday it would withdraw from the region and return to the country's capital Khartoum. "As a result of the abduction of its staff, all sections of MSF are withdrawing almost all international staff from projects in Darfur," MSF said in a statement on its website. "Only an essential skeleton team will remain to follow the case of the abducted MSF colleagues. A number of Sudanese staff will also be relocated for now."An Italian doctor, a Canadian nurse and a French co-ordinator were kidnapped in the area of Serif Umra, located in North Darfur late Wednesday. Two Sudanese staff members were also abducted but were later released. The kidnappings follow Sudan's expulsion of 13 aid groups, including the French and Dutch chapters of MSF. The expulsion did not affect the other MSF bodies in Darfur, the Belgian, Swiss and Spanish chapters.
| "The people behind the kidnapping are nothing more than armed bandits and it has nothing to do with the issue of the International Criminal Court and Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir." |
A Sudanese government source rejected claims that the abductions were linked to the arrest warrant issued for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir's in early March for alleged war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court. "The people behind the kidnapping are nothing more than armed bandits and it has nothing to do with the issue of the International Criminal Court and Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir," said a Sudanese government source, quoted by Arab TV network Al-Jazeera.
The United Nations estimates at least 300,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million others displaced from their homes in fighting across Darfur over the past six years between rebels, government forces and allied militiamen known as the Janjaweed.
Since 2003, MSF has provided aid to 500,000 people in the war-ravaged country.