Masked gunmen kill police at UN compound, Kass, S. Darfur

Any attack on peacekeepers constitutes a war crime.

From Reuters, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009:
Masked gunmen kill Darfur police at UN compound

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Masked gunmen killed two Sudanese policemen guarding a guesthouse run by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region, the aid group said on Saturday.

The two officers died on Thursday and a third was killed on Friday when security forces tracked down the raiders in south Darfur, shooting dead two of the attackers in an exchange of fire, police told Reuters.

The killings underlined the continuing insecurity in the remote western territory where law and order has collapsed after more than six years of fighting.

Up to four men raided the guesthouse in the south Darfur town of Kass in the early hours of Thursday morning, WFP security officer Elisca Lagerweij told Reuters. "The police found the body of one officer outside, shot in the back of the head. We think they caught him in his sleep," she said.

The second police officer was found four blocks away from the guesthouse, with a gunshot wound in his side, she added.

"The police told us there are criminals active in the area, targeting small groups of armed police, trying to get their guns," said Lagerweij. "We assume this was not an attack on the United Nations or its staff."

Two international staff and two WFP guards who were inside the compound were not injured. One guard, who took a brief look outside after hearing gunshots, saw the attackers wearing masks, said Lagerweij.

South Darfur's police chief Fatah Al-Rahman Osman said police pursued the attackers Friday. "One policeman and two gunmen from the other side were killed," he told Reuters.

In another sign of unrest in the region, three Nigerian members of Darfur's joint U.N./African Union UNAMID peacekeeping force were injured in an ambush outside the west Darfur capital of Zalingei on Saturday, the force said.

Unknown men opened fire on armed UNAMID police escorting a garbage truck, hitting one officer in the shoulder, one in the abdomen and one in the shoulder, said force spokesman Kemal Saiki. The men, two of them in a serious condition, were airlifted to hospital in south Darfur's capital Nyala, he added.

"We strongly condemn this wanton attack. Any attack on peacekeepers constitutes a war crime," said Saiki. [...]