By Andrew Heavens KHARTOUM, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Five kidnapped oil workers are stranded in a remote area of Sudan after a botched attempt to release them, their captors said on Friday. The five men - three Sudanese, one Egyptian and one Iraqi - were seized by Darfur rebels the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) during a raid on an oil installation in October. JEM said they handed the captives over to tribal elders who were supposed to pass the men on to the International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday. But JEM commander Abdel Aziz el-Nur Ashr told Reuters on Friday the elders had returned with the captives after meeting heavily armed government patrols on their route. "The five persons are still in the hands of the tribal leaders," said Ashr. "They are all still in good health." He said the tribal leaders were unable to advance any further because they thought they might be captured by the government troops. JEM was also unable to offer shelter, he said, because its soldiers had scattered across the heavily-mined area to evade attack. "We are calling on the U.N. to intervene and take these people," he said. "It is very important as I cannot guarantee their safety. There may be danger for these people." He said the hostages were near the remote settlement of al-Dbib, just over 70 km south east of the town of el-Muglad in west Kordofan, a region neighbouring Darfur. Privately-owned independent Sudanese newspaper Al-Sudani reported on Friday tribal elders were demanding $500,000 and a number of satellite phones for the release of the captives. JEM dismissed the report as untrue. There was no one immediately available for comment from Sudan's military. The five men had been working on the Defra oil installation, run by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company consortium. China's CNPC has the biggest stake in the group alongside India's ONGC, Malaysia's Petronas and Sudan's state-owned Sudapet. JEM said it launched the attack to send a message to Chinese oil companies that it says fund Khartoum's military. The rebel group originally gave foreign companies a week to leave the region or face fresh attacks. (Writing by Andrew Heavens in Khartoum; editing by Robert Woodward)
