French hostages freed in Sudan

Two French aid workers were freed in Darfur yesterday after being held hostage for nearly four months, France's government said.

The two were working for a French charity, Triangle Generation Humanitaire, when they were kidnapped in November 2009 in the Central African Republic, across the border from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in a statement that the two had been freed and were heading to the Sudanese capital Khartoum. He did not give their names or details of their release.

A shadowy armed group in Darfur called the Freedom Eagles of Africa said in November that it abducted the two and a Red Cross worker, Laurent Maurice, as well as two other aid workers, a Frenchwoman and a Canadian, freed in April.

Laurent Maurice was freed last month after 89 days.

A spokesman for the group, Abu Mohammed al-Rizeigi, said at the time of November's kidnappings that it wanted France to "change policy in the region," though its motives remained vague.

Paris has difficult relations with the Sudanese government as it has taken in a leading Darfur rebel leader - Abdel Wahid Nur, who heads the hardline faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement.

France also has personnel across the border in both Chad and the Central African Republic as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force.

Darfur has been stricken by a war that broke out in 2003 between rebels and militia who back the Sudanese government. Armed groups have splintered into two dozen factions, some engaging in banditry with no clear political aims.