Sudan: guard killed, international staffer wounded in attack on UN refugee post

Two gunmen attacked a United Nations refugee agency compound in southern Sudan last night, killing a local guard, critically wounding an international staff member and another local guard, and forcing the suspension of the planned repatriation of some of the hundreds of thousands of Sudanese who fled a two-decade-long civil war.

“This is a shocking event, and our hearts and thoughts are with the family of the deceased and with critically ill staff members fighting for their lives,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) António Guterres said today of the attack in Yei, where the agency set up the post in 2004 to prepare for the repatriation following a peace accord between the Government and southern rebels.

On other violence related to south Sudan, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative, Jan Pronk, has expressed concern over an ambush which left 32 people dead and more than 30 wounded when a convoy of unarmed former South Sudan Defence Forces soldiers travelling with their families and others was attacked while heading south from Khartoum, the capital.

Details of the attack in Yei are still sketchy. One guard and one of the intruders were killed and a UNHCR international staff member shot in the abdomen and a local guard shot in the leg. Both are in a critical condition in hospital in Juba, the main town of the region, after being airlifted there from Yei early this morning. An emergency medical evacuation to Nairobi, Kenya, is planned as soon as possible.

Six other international staff were in the compound at the time but were not wounded. No local staff were present. The second intruder was captured and is now in detention in Yei.

The planned repatriation of Sudanese from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to the Yei region, due to start next week, has been suspended while UNHCR reviews the situation.

There are 350,000 refugees from South Sudan in neighbouring countries, including 13,300 in DRC, and some 4 million people displaced within Sudan.

UNHCR, along with other UN agencies and non-governmental organizations, has been working since the signing of the peace accord in January 2005 to prepare communities to receive both returnees from neighbouring countries and internally displaced persons. It has built or rebuilt schools, hospitals, vocational training centres and water points to help entire communities, not just the returnees.