First UN peacekeeper killed in Darfur – officials
May 26, 2007 (KHARTHOUM) — A United Nations peacekeeper was killed in Darfur, the first U.N. casualty since the world body began sending small reinforcements to an African Union force deployed in the violent western Sudan region, the AU and the United Nations said Saturday.
Egyptian Lt. Col. Ehab Nazir, was shot by unidentified gunmen who looted his house late Friday in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state. He died hours later in an AU hospital at the African force’s headquarters about a half a mile away, the AU said.
“The senseless killing of an innocent man in the confines of his residence is beyond comprehension,” said Hassan Gibril, the deputy head of the AU mission, at a memorial for the Egyptian lieutenant colonel.
In Cairo, the foreign ministry deplored Lt. Col. Nazir’s death and condemned the “sinful aggression” in which the officer became the “casualty of an attack by armed elements.”
The AU has faced increased hostility from warring factions in Darfur, and has lost 19 of its own peacekeepers since it first deployed in June 2004.
“Not a month goes by without a new killing, it’s very difficult,” said AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni.
The Darfur conflict began in early 2003 when ethnic African groups rebelled against the Arab-dominated national government, charging it discriminates in favor of the region’s Arab tribes. Sudan’s leaders deny charges that have encouraged and armed Arab militiamen blamed for attacks on civilians.
The U.N. began deploying some 180 staff to Darfur in December to bolster the overwhelmed 7,000-strong AU mission. The support is part of a broader agreement that should lead to 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers moving into Darfur in 2007, but the AU and U.N. both acknowledge that even the first batch of 180 reinforcements haven’t all arrived.
The Sudanese government of President Omar al-Bashir has rejected a U.N. resolution for some 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers to replace the AU in Darfur, where over 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million chased from their homes in four years of fighting. Since then, the Sudanese government, the U.N. and the AU continue to negotiate a compromise for U.N. forces to help end Darfur’s violence.
(AP)