Senegalese peacekeeper shot in east Chad

Feb 4, 2006 (N’DJAMENA) — A Senegalese soldier from the African Union peacekeeping mission for Sudan’s Darfur region has been seriously injured in eastern Chad after being shot by a Chadian soldier, Chad’s foreign minister said on Saturday.

“Following an argument, a Chadian officer fired two bullets which seriously injured a Senegalese member of the ceasefire monitoring team for Darfur,” Foreign Affairs Minister Ahmat Allam-Mi said in a statement.

The Senegalese soldier was receiving treatment at a French military base but was in a coma after the shooting, which took place in the eastern Chadian town of Abeche, where the injured soldier was based as part of the AU mission overseeing a ceasefire in the neighbouring Darfur region.

The Chadian officer was on the run, the minister said.

The African Union has 7,000 peacekeepers in Sudan’s Darfur region, which erupted into violence in early 2003 when African tribes took up arms, accusing the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum of neglect.

The government retaliated by arming Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, who began a campaign of murder, rape, arson and plunder and drove 2 million villagers into squalid camps. Khartoum denies responsibility.

(Reuters)