KHARTOUM, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Two female aid workers, one from Ireland and the other from Uganda, were kidnapped on Friday in the restive western Sudanese region of Darfur, a UN source said.

    The two aid workers, with the Irish aid organization Goal, were abducted by unknown armed men in their quarters in northern Darfur, the source said on condition of anonymity.

    A Sudanese guard was also taken but later released, the source added.

    This is the third kidnapping of foreign aid workers since Marchin Sudan.

    On April 4, a Canadian and a French aid workers were kidnapped at the headquarters of a French humanitarian organization near Nyala, capital of South Darfur State.

    The kidnappers who called themselves as the "Freedom Falcons of Africans," had demanded the French government to open a re-trial of the members of the French Arch de Zue organization who were involved in the kidnapping of children from Chad and Sudan last year.

    The two aid workers were released on April 30 by the armed kidnappers, who claimed that they decided to release them for humanitarian reasons.

    Earlier in March, three foreign aid workers with the Belgian branch of the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) were kidnapped in Darfur but freed several days later, a move which the kidnappers said was a protest against an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Sudanese President Omaral-Bashir.

    On March 5, the Sudanese government announced a sudden decision to expel 13 foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Darfur, accusing them of passing "false and fabricated information" to the ICC, a charge denied by relief agencies.