Sudan, UN quarrel over responsibility of attack against Darfur peacekeepers

July 10, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — The UN chief today asked Sudan to bring to justice responsible of the deadly attack against the hybrid force. But Sudan retorted simultaneously dismissing the demand adding international community has to deal with the rebels who commit such attacks.

The United Nations has launched an enquiry to determine the responsible of the deadly attack against the hybrid mission forces in North Darfur where 7 peacekeepers were killed.

Unidentified armed men killed five Rwandan peacekeepers and two police officers, one from Ghana and the other from Uganda, and other 19 peacekeepers were wounded when a patrol from the UNAMID came under attack at Umm Hagiba, North Darfur.

UN Secretary General spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters on Thursday that “a preliminary fact-finding investigation is underway, which will be followed by an official investigation.”

Officials in the joint African Union and U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur known as UNAMID, said on Wednesday that suspected the Khartoum backed Janjaweed militiamen were responsible for the attack in which seven peacekeepers died.

UNAMID reports that seven of its vehicles were removed by the attackers. Two others were burnt and an armored personnel carrier was vandalized.

The U.N. Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, who condemned the attack, called on the Sudanese Government to bring the perpetrators to justice quickly.
However Khartoum quickly reacted to Ban’s demand rejecting any responsibility in the ambush accusing the rebel groups of carrying out the attack that the UN initially blamed on government backed Janjaweed militias.

“The peacekeeping forces in Darfur are under the umbrella of the United Nations and the African Union” said foreign ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadiq. He stressed “the responsibilities of the government are limited to cooperate and to coordinate with North Darfur authorities.”

He further pointed fingers to the rebel groups, saying they used to attack the peacekeepers in Darfur. Sadiq however didn’t give further details to identity the attackers.

Sudanese army spokesman Brig. Gen. Ali al-Agbash also accused rebel fighters and said their aim was to “destabilize the region and prove it is not safe,” the official SUNA reported.

The rebel Justice and Equality Movement which condemned the attack offered its help to arrest the authors of this attack as it “did at the … assault on AU forces at Haskanita” in September 2007.

The joint UNAMID military and police team was on a patrol to conduct an investigation into the killing of civilians in the area when they came under attack.

The attack received widespread condemnation from different countries and international institutions.

The perpetrators were onboard 40 vehicles mounted with heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft weaponry and recoilless weapons, the hybrid mission said.

The visiting British foreign minister David Miliband condemned the “horrific and cowardly act of violence.” He also reiterated “the UN Security Council’s demand for those responsible to be brought to justice.”

Canada’s Foreign Minister David Emerson on Thursday strongly condemned a deadly attack. “All the armed groups that are parties to the conflict in Darfur must put an immediate end to these terrible acts of violence,” he said.

The peacekeeping force, known as UNAMID, is authorized to have 26,000 members, but it is faced with chronic shortages of staff and equipment and less-than-adequate cooperation from the Sudanese government.

The U.N.-AU peacekeepers mostly patrol, help protect civilians without weapons in the many camps of displaced Darfurians and mediate between fighting factions. But they often have little access to wide swaths of the remote western Sudanese region, roughly the size of France.

(ST)