Two employees of a state-owned SA landmine removal company are among four foreigners captured by the Sudanese military while on a UN landmine clearance contract in South Sudan.
Ashley Williams, chief executive of Mechem, a subsidiary of arms parastatal Denel, said the workers, a SA man named Thabo Siave and a South Sudanese, were abducted with a British UN employee and a Norwegian in South Sudan.
"We are doing humanitarian landmine clearance on a UN contract and our members have full UN immunity. The abduction took place well within South Sudan territory," he said.
International Relations Department spokesman Clayson Monyela said on Sunday that they were following up reports of the arrests.
On Saturday, Sudanese army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad said the group had been captured within Sudan's borders in the tense Heglig oil area and brought to the capital Khartoum.
"This confirms what we said before, that South Sudan in its aggression against Heglig was supported by foreign experts," he said after the four were flown to Khartoum for "more investigation."
But Williams said the group had not been in the north, which split from the south in July, and had been on a humanitarian mission with no military role.
"It happened right in Southern Sudan," he said, saying the group had been travelling south between two UN bases on the way back to Bentui. "Then they grabbed them and drove back to Heglig with them where they then said they'd arrested them in this disputed area while they weren't there at all."
A team was still in the area but the UN would bring them out with protection because of fears of similar action, he said.
"It's humanitarian work so the story of them being military advisers and this type of thing is completely and utterly nonsense and not true," said Williams.
In the most serious fighting since the South's independence, Juba's troops occupied Sudan's main oil region of Heglig for 10 days, a move which coincided with Sudanese air strikes against the South.
Sudan declared on April 20 that its troops had forced the southern soldiers out of Heglig, but the South said it had withdrawn of its own accord. - Cape Argus
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