Aid worker shot dead by assailants in North Darfur – UN
July 14, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — An international relief worker was killed Wednesday in northern Darfur, the U.N. said.
The aid worker was shot dead by unknown assailants who attacked a car carrying three international relief workers near Al Sireaf, 60 kilometers north of Saraf Omra, according to a U.N. situation report issued Thursday. The attackers drove away in the workers’ vehicle, leaving the two other staffers unharmed at the scene.
The U.N. did not identify the relief organization or the victim.
The incident took place in the same area where another employee of an international organization was abducted May 3, and remains missing.
Tuesday, tribal fighting in the southern Darfur village of Um Labanya left at least 10 members of one tribe dead, and some of their bodies mutilated, the report said.
The U.N. had no information on casualties from the opposing tribe. When African Union troops tried to enter the town’s clinic to verify casualties, an angry mob demanded they flee the area.
Tribal leaders were in reconciliation talks, the U.N. report said.
Um Labanya is 62 kilometers southwest of Ed Deain.
The U.N. humanitarian chief said Tuesday that Sudan’s Darfur region was facing a new wave of killings and rapes, with fighting between rebel factions displacing thousands of villagers despite a recent peace agreement.
Humanitarian workers are being attacked every day, and “new front lines are opening all the time in new areas,” Jan Egeland told a news conference Tuesday.
The Darfur conflict began in early 2003 when members of ethnic African tribes revolted against Sudan’s Arab-led government, which is accused of responding by unleashing Arab militias known as the janjaweed who have been blamed for the worst atrocities. Khartoum denies involvement, but has committed to disarm the janjaweed under a peace deal signed May 5.
The agreement, signed by the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement but boycotted by other factions, sought to bring to an end three years of fighting between several rebel groups and pro-government forces that has killed 200,000 people and displaced another 2 million.
The fighting has also spilled across the border into Chad.
(AP)