A Canadian woman and her French colleague have been released by their Sudanese captors after more than three weeks in captivity, the Sudanese foreign ministry confirms.

The kidnappers handed the aid workers over in Ed al Fursan on Wednesday, according to Radio Dabanga, an independent shortwave broadcaster staffed by expatriate Sudanese.

Ali Yussef of Sudanese government's foreign ministry confirmed that Canadian Stephanie Joidon, and Claire Dubois, of France, were in good health upon release and were to arrive in Khartoum Wednesday evening, according to an Agence France Presse report.

The two women worked with Aide Medicale Internationale, a Paris-based medical aid agency. They were abducted on April 4 by gunpoint from their compound in Ed el-Fursan, south of the South Darfur state capital Nyala, about 100 kilometres from the Chadian border.

A spokesperson for AMI says the agency hasn't yet confirmed the release.

AMI suspended its operations in Darfur in response to the kidnappings.

A group calling itself the Falcons for the Liberation of Africa had claimed responsibility for their kidnapping. But the group's identity and demands remain unclear.

The Falcons said previously that they targeted AMI for kidnapping of Darfuri children.

"We freed them for humanitarian reasons... and because we wanted to give France the opportunity to find a solution to the problem of the children in eastern Chad," the kidnapper told AFP.

The kidnappers were demanding €1-million for the women's release and threatening to kill them unless France reopened the court case against Zoe's Arc, a French aid group that was cleared of charges in the abduction of children from Chad in 2007.

Chad imprisoned six workers with Zoe's Arc, in December 2007 after convicting them of trying to take 103 Darfur refugee children to France illegally.

Chadian Prime Minister Idriss Deby Itno pardoned the six shortly after.

A United Nations source said the group announced it was releasing the women, citing their worsening health.

"We don't have anything here," Jodoin said in a call her captors arranged with Bloomberg News last week. "My NGO tried to send things, but it did not arrive -- drugs, food, water."

The kidnapping was the second incident in Darfur since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant on March 4 for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Sudan expelled 13 aid agencies from Darfur immediately after the ICC issued its warrant.

Two other Canadians, journalist Amanda Lindhout in Somalia and Albertan resident Julie Mulligan, who was kidnapped during a Rotary exchange in Kenya, are being held in separate incidents in other parts of the continent.