Sudan Defense minister contradicts UN envoy on convoy attack
January 10, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — A few hours after Sudan’s UN envoy steadfastly denied that his government attacked a UNAMID convoy, Sudan’s defense minister on Thursday admitted his forces were responsible for the attack, but insisted the peacekeepers were to blame for not announcing their route.
“Those shots were ignored and that’s when the soldiers opened fire, wounding the driver and damaging a troop carrier and a truck,” he said.
The statements by Hussein indicate a requirement by Sudan that all UNAMID forces notify the government in advance of their movements. The UN rejected the stipulation as part of the Status of Forces Agreement (SAF).
The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday slammed as “unacceptable” Monday’s attack on the new joint U.N.-African Union force in west Darfur in which a civilian driver was wounded and several vehicles damaged.
“The army stopped firing when they realized it was a UNAMID convoy,” he said, placing responsibility for the incident on the U.N. force which, according to him, should have announced their route.
“That way we could have avoided mistaking them for rebels, especially as this area near Chad has been the scene of skirmishes with rebels,” he said.
Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of the U.N. peacekeeping department, told the Security Council Wednesday that a Sudanese area commander had confirmed that “a Sudanese armed force unit fired upon a clearly marked UNAMID convoy.”
On Wednesday, Sudan’s U.N. envoy Abdalmahmood Mohamad had denied responsibility for Monday’s attack, accusing instead what he said were Chad-backed rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement.
“They were not the government. Why we would do something like that?. I can assure you that Sudan government forces did not do that at all. We have no relationship whatsoever with that attack.” Mohamad said.
When fully deployed, UNAMID is to become the U.N.’s largest peacekeeping operation with 20,000 troops and 6,000 police and civilian personnel, but only around 9,000 troops and police are currently in place.
At least 200,000 people have died from the combined effects of war, famine and diseases and more than 2 million have fled their homes since the ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Sudan’s Arab-dominated regime in February 2003.
Some information for this report provided by AFP.