KHARTOUM: Two Russian pilots operating in Darfur have been abducted by unknown gunmen, an army spokesman said on Monday, the second kidnapping of foreigners in the war-torn region of western Sudan this month.
The pair were seized in Nyala, capital of South Darfur state, on Sunday around 4:00 pm (1300 GMT), spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad told AFP.
"Two Russian pilots were kidnapped by a small armed group in a section of Nyala," Saad said. "We have closed off all access routes (around Nyala)."
The pilots were working for the private aviation company Badr, Saad told the official SUNA news agency.
Abdel Hamid Kasha, the governor of South Darfur, said no further details were available.
"For the moment we don’t have any information, either on the kidnappers or the kidnapped."
Their capture marks the second abduction of foreigners in Darfur this month, and the latest in a string of kidnappings in Nyala.
On August 14, two Jordanian police advisers deployed with the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID) were kidnapped at gunpoint but released a few days later.
The pair was in a UN car along with two other Jordanian officers in Nyala when three gunmen ambushed them, forcing the other two passengers out of the vehicle.
Shortly afterwards, UNAMID announced that it had begun digging a "security trench" around Nyala, in cooperation with local authorities, in a bid to fend off more abductions.
The two-metre-deep (seven feet) trench, spanning about 40 kilometers (25 miles), is designed "to reduce the high incidence of criminality by regulating travel to and from the town," UNAMID said, and was due for completion within four to five weeks.
In July, a Russian helicopter pilot was taken prisoner after landing in South Darfur to pick up a group of rebels and transport them to Chad for peace talks, the Russian foreign ministry.
He was freed four days later.
Also in July, two Germans working for THW, the disaster relief arm of the German interior ministry, were freed after being kidnapped by unknown gunmen in Nyala more than a month earlier.
Strife-torn Darfur has seen a wave of kidnappings since March 2009, when the International Criminal Court indicted Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir for alleged war crimes there, with 21 foreigners seized, including the two Russians.
All the 19 foreigners previously kidnapped in Darfur have since been released except an American aid worker with the Samaritan’s Purse group abducted in May. Her kidnappers are demanding a ransom.
The western Sudanese region has been gripped by civil war since 2003, leaving 300,000 people dead and 2.7 million displaced, according to the United Nations. Khartoum says 10,000 have been killed.
