Sudan: Gunmen attack AU, UN peacekeepers in Darfur

(SomaliNet) For the first time, gunmen in Sudan have attacked police from the African Union and UN peacekeeping force in Darfur pistol whipping one officer in the back of the neck, a UN spokesman said on Thursday.

\"Four gunmen attacked, yesterday afternoon, a UNAMID police patrol, two kilometers (one mile) from the Zam Zam camp for internally displaced persons, injuring one officer,\" United Nations African Mission in Darfur spokesman Noureddine Mezni said in a statement.

According to the source, the police were stopped at gunpoint as they returned from a routine patrol at the camp, which is near Darfur\'s political capital of Al-Fasher.

It added that the officers were ordered out of their vehicles and the gunmen stole their personal belongings and official identity cards.

\"One officer was repeatedly hit in the neck by the back of an AK-47 when he hesitated in obeying instructions to get back into the vehicle,\" Mezni told Agence France-Presse, adding the victim was taken to hospital.

Two vehicles were seized in the attack, one of which Sudanese police later retrieved in a nearby village, Mezni said.

This was the first attack on police from UNAMID since the joint mission formally replaced an African Union peacekeeping operation on December 31, Mezni added, declining to specify the nationality of those attacked.

However, in January, another UNAMID convoy came under attack in west Darfur, in which a civilian driver was wounded and several vehicles damaged. Sudan said its forces were responsible but complained that the UN convoy had not announced its route.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the latest ambush, but humanitarian workers have increasingly complained about escalating banditry in Darfur.

UNAMID police do not carry weapons and this particular patrol was on duty without protection, which Mezni said was for confidence-building purposes and for easier contact with the civilians they aim to protect.

There are 1,562 police officers currently serving in UNAMID, far short of the 6,372 members that are supposed to deploy as part of the peacekeeping mission.

An extra 280 Egyptian and Nepalese police officers are expected to deploy in the coming weeks, Mezni said.

The United Nations says that since the Darfur conflict broke out in February 2003, at least 200,000 people have died and 2.2 million fled their homes while the Sudanese government maintains that 9,000 have been killed.

The conflict began when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated regime and state-backed Arab militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on earth.-AFP