Aid work­ers for the Irish agency GOAL has been released from three months of cap­tiv­ity in Dar­fur. Ban­dits had taken the aid work­ers and demanded their ran­som. Irish and Ugan­dan offi­cials were able to free the aid work­ers with­out pay­ing money.

From Forbes Mag­a­zine, we hear of the expe­ri­ences of cap­tiv­ity from Sharon Cum­mins of Ireland.

Sharon Com­mins and col­league Hilda Kuwuki, who both worked for Irish aid agency GOAL, were abducted July 3 and freed with­out harm Sun­day. Com­mins said they both might have died from bro­ken spir­its if not for the moral sup­port they gave each other.

“You could die in there of sad­ness. You could just die if you didn’t lift your spir­its,” Com­mins told Irish broad­cast­ers RTE before her depar­ture from the Sudanese cap­i­tal, Khar­toum, aboard Ireland’s gov­ern­ment jet. “We def­i­nitely needed each other. We prayed together and tried to keep each other strong.”

Sudanese and Irish author­i­ties say the ban­dits demanded a ran­som but received no money. Com­mins and Kuwuki were held the longest of three groups of for­eign aid work­ers kid­napped in Sudan’s war-torn west­ern bor­der since March. All were even­tu­ally freed.

Com­mins, 33, said she and the 42-year-old Kuwuki were held in the open in moun­tain­ous ter­rain, received two meals a day but lit­tle water, were allowed to bathe about every two weeks, and had to sleep on the ground with one blan­ket each. They were per­mit­ted to phone their fam­i­lies once as part of the kid­nap­pers’ efforts to extract a reported $1 mil­lion ransom.

She said their cap­tors, who num­bered from a dozen to about 18 gun­men, amused them­selves by pre­tend­ing to shoot the pair.

“There were mock assas­si­na­tions on a few occa­sions, so it was extremely scary. We were always anx­ious and stressed and upset until the minute we got out,” Com­mins said.

Like

Unlike