More UN workers killed in Sudan

2008-04-10 18:09

Khartoum - Five drivers delivering food for the UN World Food Programme have been attacked and killed in Sudan over the past three weeks, the WFP said on Thursday.

Four of the five were killed in southern Sudan and one was killed in the western Darfur region, the Rome-based aid group said.

In the latest attack, two WFP-contracted drivers were shot dead in southern Sudan on Monday after returning from delivering food supplies. The WFP had previously reported three other workers killed in late March.

Southern Sudan is an autonomous region where ethnic African rebels and the Arab-dominated Islamic government in Khartoum fought a two-decade civil war that ended in 2005. The conflict, which killed more than 2 million people, was separate from the 5-year-old war in Darfur.

The WFP identified one of the two workers killed on Monday as driver Hamid Dafaalla, 47. He was shot by unknown assailants while driving his truck in southern Sudan and his assistant was also shot dead while trying to flee the scene, the WFP said.

The attack occurred near the town of Mayom, not far from where two WFP-contracted drivers were stabbed to death on March 22. Another WFP driver was shot dead two days later while delivering food to Nyala in South Darfur.

29 drivers missing

The WFP said 60 of its trucks have been hijacked this year in Sudan and 29 drivers are still unaccounted for.

"The continued insecurity on the roads in areas where we operate presents not only a serious threat to the drivers, but also to vulnerable people who depend on this food for their survival," Ebenezer Tagoe, WFP Sudan Deputy Director, said in a news release.

WFP spokesperson in Sudan Emilia Casella said the drivers are often abducted with the hijacked trucks.

"Bandits don't know how to drive the trucks so they abduct the drivers," she told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

The southern Sudanese government has promised a full investigation into the killings, the WFP said.

Southern Sudan is home to mainly Christians and animists who do not speak Arabic or abide by Islamic law. The civil war in the south ended in a 2005 peace deal that provided autonomy and set up a government led by the former rebel group known as Sudan People's Liberation Movement.

Last year the WFP provided food rations for 535 000 people in southern Sudan.

- AP