Sudan helps free Egypt soldiers captured in Libya desert

Sudan’s security and intelligence agency announced that it carried out a security operation that enabled it to free an Egyptian military force of five troops who had been kidnapped by an armed Libyan group on the border between the three countries.

The agency added that the kidnappers transferred the Egyptian force to southern Libya. The state-run Sudanese Media Centre said the Egyptian force included one officer and four soldiers.

The head of Al Jazeera’s Khartoum bureau, Al-Masalami Kabbashi, revealed that Egypt said that these soldiers had lost their way in the desert, but there were no details about the area in which they went lost, or about the circumstances of their arrival on the border between Libya and Sudan.

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He added that the Egyptian intelligence services searched for the military personnel for several days before requesting assistance from their Sudanese counterpart, who had a force in this border area with Libya.

The Al Jazeera journalist said Sudanese intelligence officers had made numerous efforts which resulted in the release of the Egyptian forces from the kidnappers who belong to the Libyan Tubu tribe.

Ties between Egypt and Sudan have become strained in recent months over ongoing disputes over the disputed Halayeb Triangle and the construction of a dam in Ethiopia which Sudan supports but Egypt believes will limit its access to Nile water.