Another UN-AU peacekeeper slain after ambush in Sudan’s Darfur region

A peacekeeper serving with the joint United Nations-African Union force in Darfur (UNAMID) has been killed and another blue helmet is seriously wounded after an ambush today in the south of the beleaguered Sudanese region.

Unidentified gunmen ambushed a vehicle carrying five UNAMID troops about 11:30 a.m. in the village of Duma, northeast of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, according to a press release issued by the peacekeeping mission.

One peacekeeper died at the scene and a second peacekeeper who was seriously wounded has been taken to hospital in Nyala for emergency surgery.

The mission has dispatched staff to the scene of the ambush to investigate the attack, while the vehicle has been recovered. UNAMID reported that Government police are also combing the area.

Today’s killing occurred little more than a month after a UNAMID peacekeeper was shot and killed in West Darfur. Thirty UNAMID personnel have now died as a result of hostile action since the mission took over from an earlier AU force in Darfur at the start of 2008.

UNAMID’s Deputy Joint Special Representative (Political), Aichatou Mindaoudou Souleymane, described the killing as deplorable and offered her condolences to the family and friends of the slain peacekeeper.

“UNAMID is doing all it can to render treatment to the injured and, with the Sudanese police, to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice,” she said.

Darfur has been wracked by fighting between Government forces, allied militiamen and rebel groups since 2003, and millions of civilians have been either internally displaced or forced to seek refuge in neighbouring countries.