Lebanese Faction Releases British Relief Worker, Aide

A British relief worker and his Syrian aide were freed today, five days after being taken captive in south Lebanon, a Sunni Muslim leader said.

“They have been delivered to me. They are in my house now and they’re in good health,” said Mustafa Saad, whose Nasserite militia controls the southern port city of Sidon.

He referred to Peter Coleridge, 44, Middle East coordinator of the British relief agency Oxfam, and Omar Traboulsi, a 31-year-old Syrian who is the agency’s representative in Lebanon. They were abducted Thursday at Sidon’s Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp.

Saad said in a telephone interview that representatives of Fatah-Revolutionary Council, the radical faction headed by Abu Nidal, turned the two captives over to him at his house today.

The release of Coleridge and Traboulsi leaves 22 foreigners, including nine Americans, held hostage in Lebanon.

Lebanese security sources have said Abu Nidal’s guerrillas seized the two Oxfam officials when they saw Coleridge taking pictures of parts of Ein el-Hilweh.

The two men were taken captive after attending a 30-minute meeting at the office in Ein el-Hilweh of the Ghassan Kanafani foundation, a Palestinian charity that receives aid from Oxfam.

Saad promised Thursday that Coleridge and Traboulsi would be released “within hours.” On Friday, the two men were still in captivity, and Saad said his militia might have to consider breaking its alliance with Palestinian factions.

Saad also called on “all foreigners, Easterners and Westerners alike, to leave Lebanon because the Lebanese parties, the security systems and the Palestinian people in the camps cannot protect the foreigners who provide them with humanitarian assistance.”