DAKAR: Three Red Cross workers have been freed unharmed after being held prisoner for several days in northern Mali, the humanitarian organization said on Friday.

“The best news we could get: Our three colleagues in Mali are free, safe and sound,” Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said on Twitter.

The ICRC lost contact with four of its staff on Saturday as they were driving to their base in the town of Kidal. One of the four was found on Sunday and said the team had been accosted by a man on a motorcycle who demanded they follow him.

“They were detained by a community in northern Mali before being released this morning,” said Valery Mbaoh Nana, the ICRC’s spokesman in Mali’s capital Bamako.

He said he could give no further details for security reasons. The Kidal region is home to a number of armed groups. Militants are still active in the area despite a 2013 French-led military intervention to drive them from the desert north.