20091215

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Two freed peacekeepers on Monday described how they survived 107 days held by kidnappers without shelter in remote mountains in Sudan's Darfur region.

Pamela Ncube from Zimbabwe and Patrick Winful from Nigeria, looking frail but cheerful, received an emotional welcome at Khartoum airport a day after they were freed in Darfur.

The civilian workers for Darfur's joint U.N./African Union UNAMID peacekeeping force were abducted at gunpoint from their base in the west Darfur town of Zalingei in August in one of a new wave of kidnappings.

"There was no shelter at all. We were under the sun, under the moon," Winful told Reuters at the airport.

Winful said they were treated "quite well" by their captors but exposed to harsh conditions in Darfur's central Jabel Marra mountains.

"We were in the mountains throughout. There was the harmattan (a dust storm). There were the rains."

The UNAMID security officer said they worked hard to keep each other cheerful. "Without that we wouldn't have made it out. We just took a day at a time."

Both said they were too exhausted to talk longer and thanked Sudan's government for keeping up pressure on their captors. They were given medical checks at the airport.