Sudan kidnappers threaten to kill hostages
Sunday, 12 April 2009 23:06Kidnappers holding two aid workers in Sudan's Darfur region said they will kill them unless Paris retried members of a French group convicted but later pardoned over the abduction of children from Chad.
The group, which is holding the two female aid workers captive also threatened to target French interests in Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic if their demands were not met.
Stephanie Joidon, a Canadian, and Claire Dubois, a French national, working for Aid Medicale International (AMI) were seized at gunpoint from their compound in the south Darfur settlement of Ed el Fursan on 4 April.
Six members of humanitarian group Zoe's Ark were jailed in 2007 for trying to fly children, aged between one and 10, out of Chad to Europe.
Chad said they had no authorisation to take the children out of the country.
The six, who denied the charges, were sentenced to eight years' hard labour by a Chadian court, but were pardoned in March 2008 by Chadian President Idriss Deby.
Ms Joidon, who was allowed by the kidnappers to speak to Reuters, said she and Dubois were being treated well.
The French foreign ministry declined to comment on the case.
