Contractor pilots kidnapped in Central Darfur

Two pilots working for a company contracted to Unamid were abducted in Central Darfur today.

When the two Russian pilots returned in a vehicle from the market in Zalingei, capital of Central Darfur, toward the Unamid base near the town, they were stopped by armed men wearing masks. The gunmen ordered the peacekeepers to enter a four-wheel drive vehicle at gunpoint. According to eyewitnesses, the car went northwards, to the nearby village of Abata. A group of Sudanese forces chased the kidnappers in vain.

The governor of Central Darfur, Jaafar Abdelhakam, confirmed the incident, saying that the State Security Committee immediately met to discuss the emergency. He confirmed to Dabanga that the peacekeepers were taken outside Zalingei, but he ensured that the authorities will do everything to deal with the kidnappers, and to provide for a safe release.

Abdelhakam blamed the pilots for being outside the compound without a protection convoy. “We have warned Unamid several times, especially the senior staff. But they they did not take care to warn their own personnel, and this is the result.

"We do not know what the identity of the kidnappers is," he added. "We have started to trace the group the kidnappers most probably belong to.”

The commander of the Zalingei Unamid base declined any comment. Later this evening, a Unamid official told Dabanga that the pilots are working for a company contracted to Unamid. He could not give any further information "at this time".

Since the issuance of an arrest warrant for President Omar Al Bashir by the International Criminal Court in March 2009, kidnapping of humanitarian workers has become a regular phenomenon in Darfur. In all known cases, the abductions were carried out by government-armed militiamen, who were negotiating a ransom. Over the past years, practices of abducting people in Darfur for a ransom increased significantly.