Sudan frees four foreign detainees

Monday 21 May 2012

Sudan has released four people, including a British man, detained near the border with South Sudan after weeks of heavy clashes between the two African neighbours.

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KHARTOUM

Sudan arrested the four men – a Briton, a Norwegian, a South African and a South Sudanese person – last month, accusing them of illegally entering an oil-producing border area to spy for South Sudan.

South Sudanese officials said the men were working with the United Nations and aid groups clearing mines, and had got lost in the remote territory.Sitting beside the four at a press conference in Khartoum yesterday, former South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has been mediating between the two sides, said: "We thank the president for their release."The arrest in April came after weeks of fighting along the 1100 mile contested border that brought the two countries close to an all-out war.The southern nation, which became independent in July under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war, had seized the disputed Heglig oil area, but then withdrew under heavy international pressure.The neighbours are still at loggerheads over a raft of contentious issues including the exact position of the border, the status of citizens in one another's territory and how much the South should pay to export its oil through Sudan.

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Sudan frees four foreign detainees

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