Red Cross seeks Sudan's help in releasing kidnapped employee

Red Cross president Jacob Kellenberger met Beshir in Khartoum "to discuss efforts to secure the prompt release of ICRC staff member Gauthier Lefevre, who has been held hostage in Darfur for 110 days," the organisation said.

"President al-Beshir has confirmed to me that his government is fully committed to do everything it can to ensure Mr Lefevre's safety and to secure his speedy release," the International Committee of the Red Cross chief said.

Lefevre was captured on October 22 in Sudan's West Darfur state near the border with Chad, while travelling in a two-vehicle convoy clearly marked with the Red Cross.

Kellenberger also thanked the Sudanese government for its efforts "to secure the release of (another) ICRC delegate Laurent Maurice, freed last Saturday after 89 days in captivity," first in Chad and then in Sudan's volatile Darfur region.

Maurice had been seized by armed men on November 9, 2009 in eastern Chad, where he was assessing the harvest, just 10 kilometres (six miles) from the Sudanese border.

The Frenchman's kidnapping was claimed by a little-known Darfuri group calling itself the Falcons for the Liberation of Africa.