Eight kidnapped Red Cross workers freed in DR Congo

A tribal militia group has freed eight Red Cross workers it held hostage for a week in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Red Cross said on Friday. The eight members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were handed over to a Red Cross team in the Fizi region of the Sud-Kivi province, where they were first detained on 9 April.

The Red Cross workers were kidnapped on their way back from a mission to evaluate the needs of displaced people in DR Congo. AFP / Yasuyoshi Chiba

The head of the Mai Mai militia group behind the abduction, Aluri Yakutumba, confirmed to French news agency AFP that the ICRC staff had been released, and stressed that he had "asked for nothing in return".

The hostages' co-workers were "relieved and happy to find our eight colleagues in good health", said Franz Rauchenstein, the director of the ICRC delegation in DR Congo.

The eight hostages - one Swiss national and seven DR Congolese - were returning home from a routine mission in the Fizi region when they were taken by Mai Mai members to their headquarters at Kasakwa, close to Lake Tanganyika and the border with Tanzania.

The Mai Mai had been planning to release the Red Cross workers on Thursday, Yakutumba told AFP, but he claimed they were unable to do so because of a clash between his forces and the DR Congo army.

According to the militia leader, the ICRC workers were "arrested for their own safety" because of fighting that had taken place in the region between the Mai Mai and the army.