Kidnapped Red Cross Worker Released

On Saturday, French Red Cross worker Laurent Maurice arrived in Khartoum hours after being released following 89 days in captivity, first in Chad and then in Sudan's volatile Darfur region. A smiling Maurice, wearing sandals and sporting a thick black beard, underwent medical tests at the Al-Amal Al-Watani military hospital after being flown into the capital. The 37-year-old agronomist said that he had not been beaten or threatened by his kidnappers, a shadowy group calling itself the Falcons for the Liberation of Africa. Maurice was seized by armed men on Nov. 9, last year in eastern Chad, where he was assessing the harvest, just 10km from the Sudanese border. The group then took him to Darfur, the scene since 2003 of a brutal war and wave of kidnappings of foreigners in the past year. He said it was quickly clear to him that his the kidnappers didn't intend to harm him and that the worst were the psychological aspects of being a hostage, made more difficult by his kidnappers not speaking French. On Saturday his kidnappers said they freed Maurice because of France's "positive role" in repairing ties between Chad and Sudan.