Kidnapped Red Cross worker freed in Sudan

(CNN) -- An International Committee of the Red Cross employee was freed Thursday after being kidnapped in Sudan last year.

The employee, identified as French-British citizen Gauthier Lefevre, was released and was heading to Khartoum, the Red Cross said. Lefevre was kidnapped in October.

"Lefevre is doing well," the agency said in a statement. "He is the ICRC employee for West Darfur. He was kidnapped outside El-Jeneina as he was coming back from a mission to check water in the field."

The agency did not offer details about who the kidnappers were or what led to the worker's release.

"The ICRC's position is not to pay ransom," the statement said.

The group provides humanitarian assistance in many areas beset by violence, including Sudan.

An estimated 300,000 people have died and at least 2.5 million have been displaced in Sudan's Darfur region, where government forces and their Arab Janjaweed militia allies have battled rebels since 2003, according to the United Nations.