PH
Three kidnapped employees of Save the Children were released Tuesday in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s restive east after nearly a week in captivity, the international charity said.
“I confirm that our three employees were freed and are in good health,” Save the Children’s DRC director Heather Kerr said.
The three Congolese men were in a convoy of two vehicles driving through the Lubero region when one of the cars was stopped and attacked on Thursday. They were then taken to the bush.
Kerr did not reveal where the hostages were released, the circumstances leading to their liberation or who their abductors were.
The UN office for humanitarian affairs OCHA had demanded their immediate release and deplored the increasing trend of kidnapping humanitarian workers.
In March 2015 two local employees of the charity were held hostage for 48 hours by unidentified kidnappers in the south of the country’s Nord-Kivu province until they were freed by Congolese authorities.
The country’s east has been plagued by two decades of instability caused by armed groups battling for control of the region’s vast mineral wealth alongside ongoing ethnic and political violence.
