KHARTOUM, Aug 12 (Reuters) – One international peacekeeper
from Bangladesh was killed on Sunday when unknown gunmen opened
fire on a U.N. police station in Sudan’s Darfur region, the
United Nations and African Union-led peacekeeping force there
said.
Gunmen surrounded the police station inside Otash camp in
Nyala and opened fire, the United Nations/African Union-led
(UNAMID) force said in a statement, adding that another
peacekeeper had been wounded.
Nyala, the biggest city in Darfur, has been the scene of
anti-government protests. At least eight civilians were killed
in clashes between police and protesters earlier this month.
Mainly non-Arab rebels took up arms in Darfur in 2003,
complaining the central government in Khartoum had neglected the
remote western region.
Violence has since subsided from its peak, but law and order
has collapsed in many parts of the vast territory and clashes
have continued to erupt between rebels and government forces.
The government signed a Qatar-brokered peace deal with small
rebel groups a year ago but the main rebel groups have refused
to join.
The International Criminal Court has indicted Sudanese
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and issued an arrest warrant for
Defence Minister Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein for war crimes in
Darfur.
(Reporting by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Jon Hemming)
