Two American Nuns Reported Freed in Sudan

Catholic missionaries and diplomats in Nairobi said Friday that they received word of the release of two American nuns captured Monday by rebels in civil war-torn southern Sudan.

A spokeswoman for Nairobi’s Maryknoll mission said she received a message that Sister Sean Underwood, 43, a Medical Mission of Mary pilot from New Hampshire, and Sister Nancy Lyons, 49, a Maryknoll nurse, were released Thursday afternoon.

A diplomat in Nairobi said he received a similar message.

Beth Underwood, sister of Sister Underwood, said in Portsmouth, N.H., that the State Department confirmed the nuns’ release early Friday in a telephone call to the Underwood family.

‘Safest Place to Be’

“They were escorted by 20 soldiers on a 26-mile journey by foot,” Beth Underwood said. “They both now are in the city limits of Juba. The army feels that is the safest place to be. They seem to be OK, no problems.”

Underwood has been a medical missionary in Africa for the last 20 years, serving more than 10 years in Kenya, Beth Underwood said.

The nuns were captured by rebels Monday as they drove through a war zone to deliver emergency food to famine-stricken villages near Juba. Other nuns, driving in a second car, escaped and reported the kidnaping.

Another sister of Underwood, Joan Brooks of Voorheesville, N.Y., said the two were unharmed and in good health when they arrived Friday.

Knew It Was Dangerous

“She knew she was in a dangerous area,” Brooks said of her sister. “There was always the possibility of her being killed or taken hostage.”

The Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army, based in the predominantly Christian and animist southern part of Sudan, has fought for three years against troops loyal to the Khartoum government in the Arab-Islamic north.

Meanwhile, diplomats in Ethiopia said Juba’s airport, which had been closed since July 16 because of heavy fighting, was reopened Friday after government troops drove the rebels from the surrounding hills.

But a rebel radio station, broadcasting from Ethiopia and monitored in Nairobi, said Friday that the rebels had closed the airspace above the town.

“Any military or civilian aircraft, Sudanese or foreign, flying over Juba will be considered as hostile and a legitimate target for anti-aircraft fire,” a rebel spokesman said.