Chinese Workers Freed in Sudan, Flown to Kenya

A group of Chinese workers "kidnapped" by rebels in southern Sudan 11 days ago have been freed and flown to Kenya, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

"The Sudanese authorities allowed a Red Cross plane to take them from Kauda to Nairobi ... this Tuesday morning where they were given to the Chinese embassy there," the statement said.

The statement did not give the number of Chinese freed.

The Kauda area in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan state has been the scene of fighting since last June between government troops and rebels formerly aligned with the rulers of now independent South Sudan.

A spokesman for the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) told Agence France Presse he would comment later Tuesday but the release comes a day after the spokesman, Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, said he expected the 29 Chinese workers to be released "very soon.”

He said on Monday that the rebels were in communication with the Chinese government, although not through a six-member mission sent by Beijing to Khartoum to help secure the release of the captives, who were involved in a road-building project in South Kordofan.

They had been held since January 28 when the SPLM-N destroyed a Sudanese military convoy between Rashad town and al-Abbasiya and took over the area, the rebels said.