Search on for kidnapped aid workers in Darfur

Khartoum & Dublin: Sudanese security services were searching yesterday for two kidnapped female aid workers, one Ugandan and one Irish, taken from their compound in Darfur, the women's employer said.

Armed men seized the two workers for the Irish humanitarian group Goal from their base in the north Darfur town of Kutum on Friday evening, in the third abduction of foreign aid staff in the territory in four months.

Goal's Sudan country director Flora Hillis told Reuters she had pulled remaining staff out of the town as Sudanese police started their investigation.

"National security and police have set off in the direction that the kidnappers' vehicle was supposed to have taken."

It was the third kidnapping of foreign aid staff in Darfur since March, when the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Sudan's President Omar Al Bashir to face charges of masterminding war crimes in the region.

Aid groups say they have faced increased hostility since the ruling. Sudan's government has accused some aid workers of working as spies for Western governments and Khartoum expelled 13 humanitarian groups after the ICC's decision, accusing them of helping the Hague-based court build up its case.

Goal named the kidnapped women as Hilda Kawuki, 42, from Uganda, and Sharon Commins, 32, from Dublin.