Darfur rebels free abducted African Union workers

Rebels took hostage 18 members of an African Union team in Darfur yesterday, but released most of them after negotiations with the 53-nation organisation, officials said.

They were abducted by a splinter group a day after the first AU peacekeepers were killed in an ambush blamed on another guerilla force in the western Sudanese region, where non-Arab rebels took up arms against the central government in 2003.

The freed hostages, who had been held near the border with Chad, were on their way back on foot to the area's main town.

AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni, who did not give details on the talks with the kidnappers, said earlier reports had indicated that 16 of the 18 were being freed but that was not yet confirmed.

About 6,000 AU troops are deployed to monitor a shaky ceasefire in Darfur but violence has escalated in recent weeks, prompting the organisation last week to voice its harshest public criticism of Darfur rebels and the Sudanese government.

The acting head of the AU mission in Sudan, Jean Baptiste Natama, earlier said those kidnapped included a rebel representative and a US observer.

"Eighteen (AU) personnel including military observers, civilian police, a US representative and a Justice and Equality Movement (rebel) representative are held hostage today," Mr Natama told Reuters.

The US Embassy said it could not confirm that an American was among the hostages, who were part of a mixed ceasefire monitoring team in the remote region.

A spokesman at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Adam Thiam, said: "They were taken by a dissident group of JEM."