KHARTOUM, Sudan - The parents of a Canadian nurse who was kidnapped in Sudan's Darfur region rejoiced Saturday and expressed pride in their daughter upon learning she was released in good health.

Laura Archer, who had been working with the group Doctors Without Borders, was held for three days with two other foreign aid workers and a Sudanese guard before they were freed Saturday.

"(We're) extremely relieved and ecstatic that our daughter has been safely released," Archer's parents Ted and Barbara said in a statement about an hour after the group, also known as Medicins Sans Frontieres, or MSF, made the confirmation.

"If anyone could have handled this situation, she's the one."

"Our hearts and thoughts go out to the family and friends of Laura's colleagues who were also held captive," they added, while asking for privacy. "We've shared your anguish and now we share your joy."

Marilyn McHarg, MSF Canada general director told reporters in Toronto that the aid workers arrived Saturday at the airport in El Fasher, the city closest to the rural compound from which they were kidnapped by gunmen on Wednesday.

The four, who also included Italian doctor Mauro D'Ascanio, French Co-ordinator Raphael Meunier and Sudanese watchman Sharif Mohamadin, were on their way to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, to recover from the ordeal and debrief.

"They are safe, they are out of harm's way, they are in good health from what we understand," said Marilyn McHarg, general director of MSF Canada.

"We're extremely happy that we could say to the families that their loved ones are safe and now we will go through the process of debriefing and getting the family members all reunited."

The release came hours after a spokesman for Sudan's Foreign Ministry said earlier Saturday that the captives were still being held. But the ministry spokesman also said their release was expected during the day.

Later peacekeeping forces received actual confirmation the group had been freed. Josephine Guerraro, spokeswoman for the joint UN-African Union force in Darfur, confirmed via text message that the group appeared to be "in good health."

McHarg said MSF hadn't been able to confirm the group's release until their team on the ground saw the workers in person.

"We waited until we had confirmation by literally seeing and talking with them," she said.

"As for the rumours and the confusion, the reality is abductions like this there's a lot of information flowing, it moves very quickly and you do see that it gets quite confusing at times."

The governor of North Darfur said the kidnapping was carried out by a group trying to retaliate for the arrest warrant issued for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in Darfur.

The group, calling itself the Eagles of al-Bashir, has claimed responsibility, but no ransom was paid to them, said Osman Kebir.

"They released them for the country's sake and they kidnapped them for the sake of the country. This is what they said," he added.

The area where the gunmen kidnapped them is government controlled, and pro-government Arab militias are based nearby.

The workers were in their compound Wednesday when several armed men came to the camp and took them in a "non-violent way," McHarg said, adding they were "treated well," fed and provided with mattresses.

"We're actually outraged by what's happened," she said.

"Abducting aid workers threatens our programs, which means it threatens the very lives of the people we're trying to assist."

MSF will now have to step back and try to determine whether it's safe to continue projects where their staff remain in the country, she said.

The organization constituted the only medical organization on the ground in that location, providing care to some 60,000 displaced people.

The kidnappings further ignited fears about a backlash against foreigners in Sudan after the International Criminal Court issued the arrest warrant against Sudan's president for war crimes in Darfur.

Sudanese officials have said the court's decision encouraged lawlessness and warned that "unruly" elements might react angrily.

Archer, who's in her early 30s and was born and raised in Charlottetown, graduated from the University of Prince Edward Island in 2001 with an honours bachelor of science in nursing degree.

In a 2007 article for her alumni magazine, she wrote that an urge to see the world struck her while she was working in San Francisco, so she sold all of her belongings and backpacked through Asia and the Middle East for 18 months.

She wrote she put her nursing skills to use in India after the tsunami in December 2004, and that changed her whole outlook and led her to Doctors Without Borders.

"Through this experience, the difference between being a tourist and a humanitarian became apparent to me -- and I knew which I wanted to be," Archer wrote.

"Working with Medicins Sans Frontieres has proven to be the most difficult and rewarding experience of my life."

She has been living with her partner in Montreal.

In response to the March 4 indictment against al-Bashir, Sudan expelled 13 international aid groups working in Darfur, including two of five branches of MSF, accusing them of co-operating with the International Criminal Court.

Al-Bashir, who rejects the court's charges, has threatened to kick out more aid groups as well as diplomats and peacekeepers.

Three other MSF branches, including the Belgian arm for which the abductees worked, had remained in Darfur. But the group decided to pull out its remaining 35 international workers after Wednesday's kidnapping, temporarily halting the group's operations. Only two international staff remained to negotiate their release.

- With files from The Associated Press.