Explosion kills two aid workers in Darfur
KHARTOUM, Oct 12 (Reuters) – A British and a Sudanese aid worker were killed when their vehicle drove over a land mine in the north of Sudan’s remote Darfur region, says their organisation Save the Children.
It was the first death of a Western aid worker in the 20-month-old rebellion.
A spokeswoman for the charity told Reuters in London the two were killed on Sunday when the vehicle struck an anti-tank landmine near Ummbaru, northern Darfur.
“Two members of our staff travelling in the vehicle were killed,” she said on Tuesday, adding another Sudanese, the driver, was seriously injured.
“No words are sufficient to describe the loss of two valued colleagues whose work and efforts in north Darfur brought much relief to many children and their families,” Mike Aaronson, Director General of Save the Children, said in a statement issued in London.
The United Nations said the explosion occurred 10 km (6 miles) north of Ummbaru.
“The victims of the blast were humanitarians, whose presence in Darfur was motivated by the wish to assist people affected by the conflict,” said Jan Pronk, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special representative to Sudan.
The violence in Darfur has driven more than 1.5 million people from their homes and created what the United Nations calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Pronk also said in a statement that both the government of Sudan and the Sudan Liberation Movement rebel group had been told about the Save the Children trip according to established notification procedures.
He reminded the government and the rebels that it was their responsibility to actively safeguard the security of humanitarian workers.
After years of skirmishes between Arab nomads and mainly non-Arab farmers over scarce resources in arid Darfur, rebels took up arms accusing the government of neglect and of arming mounted Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, to loot and burn non-Arab villages.
Khartoum denies the charge, calling the Janjaweed outlaws. The United States calls the violence genocide. U.N. estimates put the death toll at up to 50,000 from violence, hunger and disease.