UNAMID deputy commander tours West Darfur after security incidents
October 16, 2008 (EL-FASHER) — A high-level military commander of the peacekeeping mission in Darfur travelled to parts of West Darfur on Thursday to evaluate the security situation. Rwandan Major General Karake Karenzi visited his forces in Mukjar and Nertiti, according to the UN-African Union hybrid mission in Darfur (UNAMID).
Karenzi, who is the UNAMID deputy force commander, evaluated the situation in the area of Nertiti to get firsthand information on a security incident that occurred at the Nertiti internally displaced persons (IDP) camp on Oct. 10, 2008.
Nertiti is only about 15 miles (24 km) west from the summit of Jebel Marra, in a zone of occasional combat between government forces and the Sudan Liberation Army faction of Abdel Wahid. The town hosts a UNAMID military base and a government military base.
Thirty-two thousand people in the town of Nertiti, the IDP camp and other camps in the area were targeted for vaccination in April in response to a meningitis epidemic.
Karenzi was accompanied by the deputy police commissioner for operations.
As part of his routine duties, the deputy force commander also paid a visit to the UNAMID military base in Mukjar, farther south and west from Nertiti, to acquire more information on the incident that occurred recently at the UNHCR offices.
UNAMID did not disclose details about the incident at the UNHCR offices, but another incident occurred Wednesday when a vehicle belonging to the international NGO Triangle was carjacked at Bergei, 12 km from UNAMID’s Mukjar camp.
The unknown attackers took one satellite phone and money from the Triangle staff and fled with their car toward the Chadian border.
(ST)