Assault Of UN Staff At Social Gathering

UN To Protest Against Arrest And Assault Of Staff At Social Gathering In Darfur, Sudan

The United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) is investigating an incident in which 20 people, including five UN staff, taking part in a social gathering in the Darfur town of Nyala were arrested by local police and security officials and assaulted, in some cases causing serious injuries, before being released.

The Mission said today that the UN will officially protest to the Sudanese Government over Friday’s arrests and physical and verbal assaults, adding in a press statement that is “deeply concerned at the treatment of the detained staff… in violation of basic principles of rule of law and due process.”

Some of the injuries sustained by the staff members were so serious they required treatment at the UN clinic in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, UNMIS reported.

The people arrested – which included African Union peacekeepers and aid workers as well as the UN staff – had been taking part in a social gathering in the compound of an international non-governmental organization (NGO) when the police carried out the raid.

The UN said it would continue its inquiry into Friday’s events in cooperation with the relevant Sudanese authorities in both Khartoum and Nyala.

UNMIS has been stepping up its presence in war-torn Darfur as part of a three-phase process of enhanced support for the AU mission known as AMIS. Under the plan, AMIS will eventually be replaced by a hybrid UN-AU force comprising about 17,000 peacekeepers and 3,000 police officers.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and at least 2 million others displaced from their homes in Darfur since 2003, when Government forces and allied militias began fighting rebel groups seeking greater autonomy for the arid and impoverished region on Sudan’s western flank.

UN officials have described Darfur as the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and recently expressed concern about the potential spillover of the conflict into neighbouring Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR).

ENDS

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