Sudanese team joins UNAMID efforts to find missing peacekeepers

April 13, 2010 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese government dispatched a special team of investigators to help UNAMID in the search of the missing peacekeepers, the hybrid peacekeeping mission said today.

Four UNMAID police advisers, two male and two female from South Africa, went missing on April 12. The peacekeepers remain unaccounted since April 11 when they left their team site, outside Nyala, at 04:00pm returning to their private accommodations.

Government officials “informed Professor (Ibrahim) Gambari they had dispatched a special to Nyala to assist our colleagues” on the search operations conducted by the hybrid mission to find the missing peacekeepers.

Noureddine Mezni, UNMAID spokesperson said the Joint Special Representative, Gambari, is close contacts with the Sudanese government who ensured him that every effort is being done to find done.

The restive region of Darfur witnessed several attacks and abductions of the members of the joint operation since 2008.

In August last year, a group of armed men had kidnapped two UNAMID staff members (one woman and one man) in Zalingei, 100 klm southeast of El-Geneina the capital of West Darfur state. They were released in mid-December thanks to government efforts to release them.

Mezni said the Mission still “talks about missing” and expressed wishes to find them soon unharmed.

(ST)