Hopes were raised last night that an Irish aid worker would be released unharmed by his kidnappers on the Ethiopia/Somalia border after the group responsible said that they had mistaken him and a colleague for foreign oil workers.
The United Western Somali Liberation Front released a statement yesterday afternoon on a Somali website saying that Dónal Ó Súilleabháin and his Ethiopian colleague, identified as Hadiis Ahmed Samatar, would be released by tomorrow.
Patrick Mégevand, of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), for whom the men work, told The Irish Times that he welcomed yesterday's statement.
He could not confirm the group claiming responsibility was the one with which the ICRC had been negotiating with throughout the week. However, he was encouraged that the statement had named the men correctly.
Irish Red Cross (IRC) chairman and former minister for foreign affairs David Andrews said that yesterday's statement was a positive development.
"We are hopeful that Dónal and his colleague will be released in the next 24 to 48 hours," he said. "We've spoken to his family and they, like ourselves, are holding their breath . . . They were not only worried about their son but about his colleague as well."
Mr Andrews said that an IRC official had already left Ireland for Ethiopia with a press officer.
Mr Ó Súilleabháin was travelling with seven local staff of the ICRC north of Gode, in the remote south-eastern Ogaden area, on Monday morning when their convoy was stopped by a group of armed men. The kidnappers took away Mr Ó Súilleabháin and his Ethiopian colleague.
The 41-year-old from Sligo was able to contact his Red Cross colleagues in the area by phone in the early hours of Thursday morning. He assured them that he was safe and uninjured.
However, while the ICRC had since been in contact with representatives of the captors, there had been no direct contact following Thursday's phone call.
Mr Ó Súilleabháin is an experienced hydrologist. He had just arrived in Ethiopia, having spent the previous year working in the Darfur region of Sudan.
It appears that a group of British oil workers who were in the Gode area last week may have been the intended victims of the kidnapping. The Ethiopian federal government has recently agreed an exploration contract with a Malaysian oil company. The statement issued by Mr Ó Súilleabháin's captors contained a threat to oil workers in the region.