Two German engineers held hostage in Iraq for more than three months have been freed and will fly home on Wednesday. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's foreign minister, said on Tuesday that the two men, who had been abducted on January 24 outside their workplace in the industrial town of Baiji, 180km north of Baghdad, were freed without warning and appeared to be unharmed. "I am very pleased to inform you that the two kidnapped men from Leipzig, Rene Braeunlich and Thomas Nitzschke, have been freed today," Steinmeier said in a statement. He addedd the men, being looked after in Germany's embassy in Baghdad, were expected to return home on Wednesday. "After spending more than three months under inhumane conditions they are in German care," added Steinmeier, who was on an official visit to Chile.