Richardson Wins Release of 3 Captives in Sudan

U.S. Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) won the release Sunday of three International Red Cross workers, including an American, who had been held for five weeks by Sudanese rebels.

Pilot John Early of Albuquerque, N.M., and his colleagues were in good condition in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, said Nic Sommer, a Red Cross spokesman in Nairobi.

Five Sudanese patients captured with the three were also freed, said Stu Nagurka, Richardson’s spokesman.

Richardson and the three Red Cross workers, including an Australian nurse and a Kenyan pilot, will travel to Geneva today, Nagurka said.

Richardson persuaded rebel leader Kerbino Kwanyih to release the three with the help of the U.S. ambassador and top Sudanese officers, the New York Times reported Sunday.

The rebels had demanded $2.5 million in ransom, but settled on five tons of rice, four jeeps, nine radios and--in an offer from Richardson that sealed the deal--a health survey for their disease-ridden camp, the newspaper reported. About 450 children, including Kwanyih’s youngest daughter, have died at the rebel camp for lack of clean water and medicine, the report said.

The negotiators met with the kidnappers in Gogrial, the southern Sudanese town where the three aid workers spent part of their captivity.

The release was the latest in a string of diplomatic successes for Richardson, which included winning the release last month of an American jailed on spy charges for three months in North Korea.

Early told Albuquerque television KRQE that he was confident they would be freed.

“One thing I told my crew: ‘Americans in trouble, we always get our people out,’ ” Early said Sunday. “ ‘Americans will come and get us.’ And they did.”