African Union troops come under fire in Darfur

By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM, Dec 2 (Reuters) – An African Union officer was wounded for the first time in Darfur when AU forces monitoring a truce between government and rebel forces in the western region of Sudan came under fire, an AU official said on Thursday.

An African Union ceasefire monitor leaves a meeting with Sudan Liberation Army rebels in the desert west of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, November 8, 2004. (Reuters).

The official said the forces came under fire on Wednesday on their way to verify fighting in the village of Edwa on a road between the capitals of North and South Darfur states. The United Nations said it had confirmed reports the fighting was between the government and the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA).

Jean Baptiste Natama, a senior AU protocol officer, could not say which side had hit the AU officer.

“A Chadian member of the team was shot in the right shoulder. The officer sustained minor injuries. After they were fired on, they returned from the place,” he told Reuters.

It was the first time an AU soldier had been wounded in the Darfur mission, but not the first time the force had come under fire, he said.

The Justice and Equality Movement, another Darfur rebel group, said government forces and mounted Arab militia attacked Edwa and two other villages on Wednesday and killed 96 civilians.

Sudanese officials were not immediately available for comment.

The AU force’s main job is monitoring the ceasefire agreed in April which both sides accuse the other of breaking. But their mandate also allows them to protect civilians threatened with immediate harm.

There are about 1,000 AU ceasefire monitors on the ground, and the force is due to grow to more than 3,300.

The AU said on Wednesday it would boost its peace monitoring operation in Darfur with the deployment of 196 Senegalese troops next week. Troops from Tanzania, Gambia and South Africa would also follow, it added.

After years of skirmishes between Arab nomads and mostly non-Arab farmers over scarce resources in arid Darfur, rebels took up arms early last year accusing the government of neglect and of arming Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, to loot and burn non-Arab villages.

Khartoum admits arming some militias to fight the rebels but denies any links to the Janjaweed, calling them outlaws.

The violence has created what the United Nations says is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.