Ghanaian Peacekeeper killed in Darfur

Armed militia attacked and killed a Ghanaian and five other members of the joint United Nations African Union peace mission in Sudanese Darfur region, wounding several others, state official said today.

Sudan's state news agency SUNA reports that peace force was attacked by a huge convoy of 40 armoured sports utility vehicles while on patrol in North Darfur.

Among those killed, four were from Rwanda, one from Ghana and one from Uganda, saying ten vehicles from the UN-AU Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) were destroyed during the attack, Sudan's state media reports.

SUNA had earlier confirmed death of peacekeeping forces in the afternoon attack, saying 17 others were missing after the attack.

An attack is the latest in a series of assaults on UNAMID across the vast region of Darfur, where ethnic and tribal conflict has spiraled into escalating insecurity and banditry over the past five years.

UN-AU mission has been struggling to contain violence in the Darfur region with just less than 10,000 of the planned 26,000 peace forces which took over peacekeeping duties in Darfur earlier this year with police officers.

Apart from the troop’s number, peacekeeping operations hit a rock due to chronic shortages of staff and equipment and less than adequate cooperation from the Sudanese government to foil violence.

"The mission is obviously outraged by the attack," UNAMID spokeswoman Ms Shereen Zorba told Reuters news agency.

It is unclear who was responsible, as numerous armed groups operate in Darfur rebel factions, pro-government militias and criminals, reports said.

Burkina Faso's Foreign Minister Djibril Bassole was appointed as the new UN and AU Darfur peace envoy last week, but two outgoing peace envoys have questioned whether armed groups in the region are committed to ending the conflict.

Darfur peace talks have been complicated recently because the rebels have split into more than a dozen factions.

UNAMID commanders have urged the international community to provide troops quickly to reinforce the mission. They have also asked industrialised nations to provide vital equipment such as attack helicopters to help peacekeepers to safely navigate Sudan’s remote Darfur region to end the disintegration of law and order in Darfur.

In late May, dozens of heavily armed men on horseback ambushed a UNAMID patrol in Darfur and seized weapons from Nigerian troops near El Geneina, and in a separate incident a Ugandan policeman was found murdered in North Darfur.

Last month, four UN-AU staffers were assaulted and held at gunpoint in Darfur. One of the staffers was stripped of his belongings, kidnapped briefly and then released by Arab militiamen on horseback, according to a statement from the joint force.

The World Food Programme, the largest UN humanitarian agency, has cut rations by half because banditry has made roads increasingly dangerous.

The conflict began in 2003 when rebels took up arms in protest at alleged government discrimination against the region. Since the conflict began in Darfur in 2003, the UN estimates that some 300,000 people have died and two million have fled their homes.