KHARTOUM, Sudan - A female American aid worker abducted by gunmen in the Sudanese region of Darfur more than 100 days ago was freed on Monday, an official said, while three Russians were reported kidnapped.
The woman, who works for US aid group Samaritan's Purse, was kidnapped in mid-May in the village of Abu Ajura, in South Darfur state, along with two Sudanese colleagues who were later released.
"She was freed a short while ago and is now at the home of the governor of South Darfur, (Abdel Hamid Kasha) in Nyala," Sudan foreign ministry spokesman Moawiya Osman told Agence France-Presse.
The release of the woman, whose name was not immediately released, was the fruit of "negotiations with the abductors," Osman said.
"No ransom has been paid," he added. Her abductors had asked for a large sum of money in exchange for her release.
According to Osman, authorities had struck "a deal with the Americans that no security operation should be undertaken to free the woman in order to protect her life."
The kidnappers initially wanted a ransom but later said they had made "demands" of the Khartoum government.
News of the woman's release came just hours after Sudan's army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad reported that two Russian helicopter crew members had been abducted by gunmen in Nyala, capital of South Darfur state, on Sunday.
He later gave a revised figure of three Russians kidnapped, while Russia's Interfax news agency identified them as the captain of a Mi-8 helicopter and two crew members.
Strife-torn Darfur has seen a wave of kidnappings since March 2009, when the International Criminal Court indicted Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir for alleged war crimes there, with more than 20 foreigners seized, including the Russians.
With the release of the American aid worker, only the three newly-seized Russians remain in captivity.
In July, the American aid worker, reached by satellite telephone, told AFP that her situation had turned into a "nightmare."
"In the past it was okay, but now it is not. They are threatening me, my life, my health," said the woman.
"I am not safe now. I don't have clean water, the situation changed very quickly into a nightmare. There are 20 men around me now," she said. "I want to go home, I just hope they will release me."
The woman's identity was confirmed to AFP by Samaritan's Purse, but the aid group had requested that her name not be published. It is the first time a Western woman has been held alone in Darfur.
According to foreign ministry spokesman Saad, the abducted Russians work for private aviation company Badr.
The Kremlin special envoy on Sudan, Mikhail Margelov, was quoted by Russia's Interfax news agency on Monday as saying that in fact three Russians -- the captain of a Mi-8 helicopter and two crew members -- were abducted.
"The helicopter was carrying food and other civilian supplies for the United Nations mission to Darfur," Margelov was quoted as saying.
Darfur has been gripped by civil war since 2003 that has left 300,000 people dead and 2.7 million displaced, according to the United Nations. Khartoum says 10,000 have been killed in the conflict.
The capture of the Russians marks the second abduction of foreigners in Darfur this month, and the latest in a string of kidnappings in Nyala.
On August 14, two Jordanian police advisers deployed with the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID) were kidnapped at gunpoint but released a few days later.
The pair were in a UN car along with two other Jordanian officers in Nyala when three gunmen ambushed them, forcing the other two passengers out of the vehicle.
Shortly afterwards, UNAMID announced that it had begun digging a "security trench" around Nyala, in cooperation with local authorities, in a bid to fend off more abductions.
In July, a Russian helicopter pilot was taken prisoner after landing in South Darfur to pick up a group of rebels and transport them to Chad for peace talks, the Russian foreign ministry.
He was freed four days later.
