Darfur, Jan 27: Gunmen killed an Indian peacekeeper and wounded two others in southern Sudan on Friday, the UN said.

The attack underscored southern Sudan's chronic instability despite a January 2005 peace agreement that ended the region's 21-year civil war, a conflict separate from the ethnic bloodletting in Sudan's western Darfur region.

The peacekeepers were attacked by unknown assailants while escorting a de-mining team near Magwe, a town about 1,000 miles south of Sudan's capital, Khartoum, the UN said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was in Paris on Friday, demanded an investigation and extended "his condolences to the government of India and to the family of the deceased soldier."

Some 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers are in southern Sudan to monitor the peace agreement between Sudan's Muslim government in the north and the mostly Christian rebels in the south. The region has remained volatile, with more than 150 people killed in fighting last month between former rebels and government forces in the town of Malakal.

Earlier this month, a Sudanese driver for the World Food Program was killed in an ambush on the road between the towns of Juba and Torit, the UN said.

Friday's attack came two days after Ban called for Sudanese officials to investigate the arrest and assault of 20 UN staff members and humanitarian workers by police in Darfur last week.

Ban will meet with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in Ethiopia next week for talks that could be crucial to pushing through a three-phase UN plan to beef up the 7,000-member AU force struggling to maintain peace in Darfur.

Bureau Report