Martin flies to Sudan for talks on aid worker

THE Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that Minister Micheál Martin flew to Khartoum last night to meet Sudanese officials as part of ongoing efforts to free kidnapped Irish aid worker Sharon Commins.

The 32-year-old GOAL worker from Clontarf in Dublin was snatched at gunpoint along with a Ugandan colleague and a Sudanese watchman in the town of Kutum, north of Darfur, two months ago.

It’s understood that intensive negotiations have taken place in the past eight weeks but have broken down on a number of occasions.

It has also been reported the Sudanese tribesmen, from a nomadic grouping in north Darfur, are seeking a €2 million ransom.

The trio were taken by a gang of eight gunmen from their compound.

Sudanese government officials say they are negotiating with the abductors through senior members of the Islamic tribe.

It has been reported that Ms Commins and her colleague, 42-year-old Hilda Kawuki, are “in good health” despite their ordeal.

The women were among a group of five GOAL workers who were stationed in the Kutum area.

Ms Commins had been working in the area for about a year.

The aid agency, which has been working in Sudan since 1985, has been concentrating on operating primary healthcare programmes.

This was the third kidnapping of aid workers in the Darfur region since an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes was issued on March 4 by the International Criminal Court againstSudanese president Omar al-Beshir.