U.S. missionary freed by rebels

Rebels in Chad freed a U.S. missionary after holding him hostage for more than nine months in the central African country’s remote north, his organization said.

Steven Godbold, who was captured by rebels while helping a local organization transport equipment to drill water wells, was freed late Thursday, the Wheaton, Ill.-based Evangelical Alliance Mission said in a statement.

Godbold, 49, was held by Chad’s rebel Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad, which suspected him of being a spy for the government.

Godbold, who had worked in Chad since 1991, is married and has four children, his organization said. It said it paid no ransom nor made any concessions.

The rebel group was formed in the mountainous north in the late 1990s.