German aid workers freed in Darfur

BERLIN - Germany Tuesday said its two aid workers abducted five weeks ago in Sudan’s Darfur have been released.

“I am very pleased and relieved that the two kidnapped German workers are free,” Xinhua quoted German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle as saying.

The two, aged 34 and 52, are now in the care of Sudanese authorities and are being transferred to the country’s capital Khartoum, said the minister.

The duo worked for a German civilian government agency, Technisches Hilfswerks, which has operated generator and repair workshops in Nyala and Al-Fashir in the Darfur region. They were abducted June 22, when several gunmen attacked the agency’s office in Nyala.