UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday condemned “in the strongest terms” the latest attacks against a peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s Darfur region, which left a peacekeeper dead.
he peacekeeper was shot when the convoy belonging to the mission (UNAMID) came under attack by unidentified armed assailants on the road from Kabkabiya to Saraf Umra in North Darfur. He later succumbed to his injuries in the mission’s hospital in Kabkabiya. One of the UNAMID vehicles was hijacked by the attackers.
“The Secretary-General was deeply disturbed to learn of another attack today by unidentified armed assailants on a convoy of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) near Kabkabiya, North Darfur, in which one Rwandan peacekeeper was killed,” said a statement issued here by Ban’s spokesperson on Sunday night.
Ban expressed his sincere condolences to the family of the fallen peacekeeper, and to the government of the Republic of Rwanda. He expected the Sudanese government to take swift action to bring the perpetrators of this and previous attacks on UNAMID to justice.
Mr. Chambas, who is the head of UNAMID, called on the Sudanese Government to act “decisively and quickly” in bringing those responsible to justice.
Established by the Security Council in 2007, UNAMID is in charge of, among other tasks, the protection of civilians and contributing to security for humanitarian assistance in Darfur, where fighting between rebel groups and Government forces and allied militia has led to the deaths of an estimated 300,000 people and displaced nearly two million over the past 10 years.
