Peacekeeper dies 2 months after Darfur’s Haskanita attack
December 11, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — A Nigerian soldier has died in hospital more than two months after he was critically wounded in an attack on his base in Sudan’s Darfur region, the African Union said on Tuesday.
The 32-year-old corporal was the twelfth person to die following the attack in late September — the worst single assault on African Union peacekeepers since they arrived in the area in 2004.
“There is a great feeling of sadness. It has affected everyone from the most junior soldier up to the head of the mission,” said African Union Mission in Sudan spokesman Noureddine Mezni.
“These people came out here to help their brothers and sisters in Darfur. They didn’t deserve this treatment.”
Armed raiders overran the AU base in the southern Darfur town of Haskanita on Sept. 29. Ten AU peacekeepers were killed.
AMIS said another 48-year-old Nigerian corporal, who was critically wounded in the attack, died three weeks ago after returning home for treatment. The 32-year-old corporal died late on Monday in the intensive care unit of a Khartoum hospital where he had been treated since the attack.
Two other Haskanita soldiers are still in a critical condition in the same hospital, Mezni said, adding that he would not release the men’s names.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack which is still under investigation by the AU.
Preliminary results of the probe released by the U.N. said the attackers used vehicles marked “JEM”, the initials of Darfur’s powerful Justice and Equality Movement rebel faction.
JEM denied carrying out the attack and blamed members of a breakaway splinter group.
A beleaguered force of 7,000 AU peacekeepers in Darfur is due to be replaced by 26,000 joint U.N./AU troops and police in the new year. The AU Darfur force has lost 59 men since its formation, 30 of them in attacks.
An estimated 200,000 people have died of disease, hunger or as a result of violence in the Darfur conflict between the government and rebels, who took up arms in 2003 saying Khartoum discriminated against non-Arab farmers and neglected the region.
(Reuters)