Khartaum, December 05: A Rwandan peacekeeper in Sudan has died of his wounds after an attack by gunmen in Darfur, raising to three the number of soldiers killed in the incident, a senior peacekeeping official says.
“He died on Friday of his wounds. He died while he was being evacuated,” Kamal Saiki, head of communications with the joint United Nations African Union Mission (UNAMID) in Darfur, said.
The peacekeepers said two other Rwandans were killed and two wounded in Friday’s attack near their Saraf Omra base in the war-torn region. Twenty UNAMID personnel have now been killed since the mission’s launch in 2004.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack and called on the Sudanese Government to ensure that the gunmen “be identified and brought to justice”.
The UN says up to 300,000 people have died from the combined effects of war, famine and disease and more than 2.7 million fled their homes since a conflict erupted in Darfur in 2003 pitting separatist rebels against Khartoum.
The Government says 10,000 people have been killed.
Clashes have eased but insecurity has been on the rise, with a spate of kidnappings of foreign aid workers since the International Criminal Court indicted President Omar al-Beshir for alleged war crimes in Darfur last March.
—Agencies