{{Thirty-one civilians seized at gunpoint in Darfur by the Sudan Liberation Army-Abdel Wahid (SLA-AW) on March 24 were released, the Red Cross announced on Saturday.}}<\/p>\n
The civilians were arrested while travelling under the escort of UN peacekeepers from Zalingei, capital of Central Darfur state to Nyala, capital of South Darfur state, to attend a conference for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs).<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s handover to Sudanese authorities was facilitated by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).<\/p>\n
In a statement, the organisation said its personnel accompanied the group, who were flown by helicopter to Zalingei, where they were met by Sudanese authorities.<\/p>\n
No further details were provided about the operation, which had been due to take place on Friday before being postponed due to “technical reasons”.<\/p>\n
According to the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), the civilians were captured after a convoy they were travelling in was ambushed by armed men wearing military uniforms in seven jeeps with mounted guns.<\/p>\n
Those abducted, who all came from the Wadi Saleh region in West Darfur, were reportedly taken to an unknown location in Jebel Marra.<\/p>\n
Rebel leader Abdel Wahid Mohammed Al-Nur later confirmed his group was responsible for the attack.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Radio Dabanga on Friday, SLA-AW military spokesman Mustapha Tambour reiterated claims that the captives were security agents affiliated with the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) who had been posing as IDPs.<\/p>\n
There has been no official comment from either UNAMID or Sudanese authorities in response to the claims.<\/p>\n
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{{Thirty-one civilians seized at gunpoint in Darfur by the Sudan Liberation Army-Abdel Wahid (SLA-AW) on March 24 were released, the Red Cross announced on Saturday.}} The civilians were arrested while travelling under the escort of UN peacekeepers from Zalingei, capital of Central Darfur state to Nyala, capital of South Darfur state, to attend a conference […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-6855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6855"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=6855"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=6855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}