Darfur Ministry calls for tips about UNHCR abduction

The Ministry of Information in West Darfur announced it has taken all necessary security arrangements to gain access to the hijackers of the two employees of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), who were kidnapped with their Sudanese driver from El Geneina on Sunday evening.

Information Minister Mustafa Abdullah Jarelnabi called on the residents of the state to provide the police and security authorities with any information that could help them to find and free the hostages, and arrest the perpetrators.

A group of gunmen driving a vehicle kidnapped the three workers in the centre of the state capital. “At 6.30pm, they intercepted the car that was transporting the foreign staffers from the office to their home, not far from the El Geneina Grand Mosque. They took them at gunpoint to an unknown destination,” a source told Radio Dabanga that day.

The abductees are a Sudanese driver and two foreigners. Al Jazeera reported that the two UN staff are Nepalese.

Jarelnabi told the press yesterday that the State Government furthermore takes arrangements on the border to control outlaws and extend the state's rule of law.

West Darfur coordinates on this with the security committees of Kulbus, Jebel Moon and Sirba localities, in order to secure the border with Chad in the northern strip of the state.