United Nations peacekeepers killed in ambush in Darfur

The deaths were the first since the U.N. formally took control of Darfur's beleaguered peacekeeping mission from the African Union in January.

U.N. officials said today that one of their patrols was ambushed on Tuesday afternoon about 60 miles south of El Fasher, the town where the U.N. peacekeeping mission is based. The patrol was investigating the killings of civilians when it was attacked by dozens of armed men in SUVs.

In addition to at least seven deaths, 22 other peacekeepers were wounded, seven seriously. The dead soldiers were from Rwanda, Ghana and Uganda, U.N. officials said.

Ten U.N. vehicles were destroyed, according to SUNA, the government-controlled news agency.

It was the deadliest attack on Darfur peacekeepers since September, when 10 soldiers with the African Union, or AU, were killed during a raid against a small military base in Haskanita. The attackers, who were believed to be part of a fringe rebel group, stormed the base in search of weapons and trucks.

Now entering its sixth year, the Darfur conflict began when rebel groups in western Sudan attacked government installations, alleging marginalization by the Khartoum regime. The government is accused of arming local militias, which burned hundreds of villages and drove more than 2 million people from their homes. At least 200,000 people have died in the conflict, according to most estimates.

Under heavy pressure from the United States and United Nations, Sudan's government last year agreed to allow 26,000 U.N. peacekeepers into Darfur, a substantial increase over the previous 9,000 AU troops. The international community hoped a larger, more robust force would help restore security.

During the past six months, however, violence in the region has only worsened, including renewed flareups between government troops and rebels, and a surge in banditry that is hindering efforts by humanitarian groups to deliver food and aid.

The joint U.N.-AU mission has also suffered from delays in troop deployments and shortages of equipment, from toilets to helicopters. The Sudanese government is accused of foot-dragging in providing needed approval.

So far fewer than 300 additional soldiers and police officers have been deployed to the region since the beginning of the year. The rest are AU holdovers who traded their green berets for blue U.N. helmets.

Tuesday's attack suggests that the new mission is struggling with some of the same image problems as the previous one. AU soldiers were widely criticized by militia groups and displaced people in Darfur as being ineffective or pro-government.

Under U.N. control, peacekeepers substantially increased the number of daily patrols they conduct in displacement camps and pursued a "hearts and minds" strategy, handing out candy to children and reestablishing a presence inside camps to handle complaints. But those inside the camps remained skeptical.

"I don't see any difference yet on the ground," said Abdulaziz Adam Nur, a rebel leader at Darfur's Zamzam camp, in an interview earlier this year.

edmund, sanders@latimes.com