January 5, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has commenced negotiations to free more than 20 Chinese held hostages in Sudan amid conflicting reports on whether some of them have been rescued.

Chinese workers who escaped after being abducted arrive at Khartoum Airport January 30, 2012 (Reuters)

Meanwhile, Chinese media has reported that Beijing has dispatched a team to conduct negotiations with neighboring South Sudan to secure release of the hostages.

The 29 hostages were captured on Saturday, 30 January, by rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLMN) during their military assault on the town of Al-Abbasiya, 390 miles (630 kilometres) south of Khartoum.

According to official Chinese media, the kidnapped workers were building a road to connect two remote towns in South Kordofan. It later emerged that 47 Chinese workers were present when the attack occurred, some of them managed to evade capture.

Sudan reported that its army had “liberated” 14 of the hostages while one died in a rescue mission conducted by its army on Monday, a claim denied by Chinese officials who suggested that those picked up by the army are the ones who evaded capture during the fighting, not those who were captured.

The rebels who have been fighting government forces in South Kordofan since June last year admitted to capturing the Chinese but promised to release them.

China’s official news agency Xinhua on Saturday quoted a rebel spokesman as saying his group is looking for ways to release the hostages.

"Presently we are looking for a way ... to release these Chinese workers, set a date for their release and the party to which they are to be handed over," SPLMN spokesman Arno Taloudy told the agency.

Sources told Sudan Tribune that the ICRC-led negotiations had already progressed to an advanced stage and were expected to bear fruit within the next 48 hours.

The sources further disclosed that the only point hindering the talks is whether the point of handover, explaining that the rebels refuse to surrender them in Khartoum while the Sudanese government refuses to receive them in South Sudan’s capital Juba as the rebels demanded.

SPLMN rebels share a history of military struggle with South Sudan’s ruling party against the Sudanese government which accuses Juba of supporting its former comrades in arms, a charge South Sudan denies.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in July last year as per a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war that saw many in South Kordofan and Blue Nile taking up arms alongside southerners, citing identical grievances of economic and cultural neglect by successive northern governments.

The People’s Daily, a newspaper representing the ruling Chinese Communist Party, quoted an “authoritative source” revealing that a team of Chinese officials have been sent to South Sudan in order to negotiate the release of its hostages with officials there.

On Monday last week, a meeting took place in an unidentified location between Chinese officials, including the ambassador to Addis Ababa, Xie Xiaoyan, and the SPLMN’s chairman Malik Aggar and secretary-general Yasir Arman.

A statement released by the SPLM-N said that ambassador Xiaoyan and two other officials who attended the talks were instructed by Beijing to follow up on the situation relating to the kidnapped workers.

The rebels said they requested Chinese officials to ask Khartoum to open safe humanitarian corridors in SPLMN-controlled areas where food insecurity and malnutrition have reached “alarming levels” according to UN officials.

(ST)