Kidnapped French aid worker in good spirits:ICRC

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A kidnapped French aid worker in Darfur is in good spirits and was being given food and water, the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Sunday after their first direct contact with him.

Gauthier Lefevre was captured in Sudan's troubled west on Thursday.

It was the latest in a wave of abductions targeting foreign workers by armed men demanding ransom. The abductions have weakened Darfur's already vulnerable aid operation.

"The breakthrough is that we've actually spoken to Gauthier -- very briefly," ICRC spokeswoman Tamara al-Rifai said.

"He said he was in good health, they were giving him food and water and he seemed to be in good spirits," she said, adding that his captors had not yet set any ransom demands.

Two women from the Irish aid agency Goal were released just days before Lefevre was kidnapped after enduring more than three months in captivity. They described mock executions and said their kidnappers had wanted money.

A Darfur tribal leader said he was told their captors had been given cash, but Khartoum has strongly denied this.

Observers worry that even rumours of ransoms being paid and the fact the Sudan government had not yet arrested any of the kidnappers would encourage more abductions, threatening the world's largest humanitarian operation in Darfur.

Mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of neglect. Khartoum's counter-insurgency campaign drove more than 2 million people from their homes into miserable camps, sparking a major humanitarian crisis.