7 Soldiers Killed, 10 Missing in Darfur

from All Africa

Vanguard (Lagos)

NEWS

By Kingsley Omonobi
Abuja

TEN Nigerian soldiers serving in Darfur, Sudan have been confirmed missing.

They are among the 40 peace keeping soldiers missing after rebels of a splinter group in the Darfur crisis attacked an African Union camp in the area on Saturday, killing scores of peacekeepers.

Seven Nigerian soldiers were killed during the attack while another seven were critically wounded from gunshots sustained when the AU peacekeepers decided to fight their way out of the attack.

Confirming the development in a telephone chat with Vanguard yesterday, Director of Army Public Relations, Col. Giwa Amu, denied that nine Nigerian soldiers lost their lives in the attack, saying the soldiers were killed at Sector 8, located in Haskenita in western Darfur.

He said currently, Nigerian soldiers attached to the AU mission were conducting a search operation to see if they could locate the whereabouts of the missing soldiers.

On what the Army authorities would do regarding the dead soldiers, Col Amu said: "What the Army is doing now is that we are trying to reach the families of those that died while arrangements are on to bring their bodies home. The political class will determine the next line of action."

Meanwhile, the commander of the new hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur, General Martin Luther Agwai, has blamed a breakaway rebel faction for the attack that killed 10 African Union troops.

Speaking from the scene of the attack, General Agwai said it was a splinter group "which broke away from a faction called SLA United."

About 30 AU soldiers including 10 Nigerian soldiers are missing and seven were badly injured in the raid, by heavily-armed men in 30 vehicles.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the killings were "outrageous."

General Agwai said the attackers destroyed two armoured personnel carriers, looted equipment and stole ammunition from the AU monitoring group at the base in Haskanita. He categorically ruled out any involvement by government forces.

The Saturday evening attack on the AU military observers was the worst on its troops since their deployment to the region three years ago.

The AU says 40 of the mostly Nigerian troops are still missing. Seventeen were found on Sunday in a nearby village.

Next year the UN and AU will jointly deploy the world's largest peacekeeping force -- 26,000 troops-- to Darfur.

It will absorb the current force of 7,000 AU troops, which has been struggling to protect civilians in the region.

Meanwhile, officials in Senegal have warned that the country's force in Darfur could be withdrawn following the attack.

One Senegalese soldier was among the 10 members of the mission killed in the fighting alongside seven Nigerians, a Malian and a Botswanan.

"I did not send people there to die. So I have threatened to pull our troops back. I am not the only one," said Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade.

Meanwhile, a delegation of notable world figures led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu has arrived in Sudan for talks. The archbishop is leading a delegation of "elders" that includes former UN envoy to Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi, former US President Jimmy Carter, and Graca Machel, a children's rights advocate and the wife of Nelson Mandela.

The group came together at Nelson Mandela's invitation to find ways to tackle some of the world's toughest problems, such as HIV/Aids, poverty and conflict.

The group is scheduled to meet Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and opposition leaders in Khartoum on Monday before travelling on to refugee camps in Darfur.

Commenting on the raid, Mr Tutu said: "It just shows how desperate the situation is, how desperately we've got to find a peaceful solution so that incidents of that kind don't happen."

At least 200,000 people have died in Darfur during a four-year conflict and more than two million have been forced from their homes.