Irish team arrive in Darfur to help free aid workers
KHARTOUM, July 6 (Reuters) - Irish negotiators arrived in Sudan's Darfur region on Monday to help free two female aid workers, one Irish and one Ugandan, kidnapped from their base by armed men.
The women from the aid group GOAL were seized by up to eight armed men from their compound in the north Darfur town of Kutum on Friday evening, Sudanese police said -- the third time foreigners have been abducted in Darfur in four months.
The team of Irish diplomats and trained negotiators arrived in the north Darfur capital of El Fasher, 120km (75 miles) southeast of Kutum, on Monday morning, U.N. officials said.
"They will be there for as long as it takes," Ireland's honorary consul in Khartoum Ronnie Shaoul told Reuters.
"They are there to negotiate with whoever may have abducted the two women ... They have a few thin lines to work on. There have been lots of rumours and hearsay but nothing concrete."
He added the delegation was still waiting to hear from the kidnappers three days after the abduction, and had no information on their motive.
GOAL has named the kidnapped women as Hilda Kawuki, 42, from Uganda, and Sharon Commins, 32, from Dublin.
The six-year Darfur conflict has pitted pro-government militias and troops against mostly non-Arab rebels, who took up arms in 2003, accusing Khartoum of neglecting the remote western region.
Law and order has collapsed in the region, where bandit attacks and clashes between rival tribes have become common. Militias and rebel groups have splintered and some have switched allegiance since the start of the conflict.
The United Nations says more than 2.7 million people have been driven from their homes by the fighting, while death-count estimates range from 10,000, according to Khartoum, to 300,000, according to U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes.
No one was immediately available to comment on Monday on the latest efforts by Sudan's government to reach the kidnappers.
