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Sudan: Gunmen Kill Leader of Displaced Persons Camp in Darfur, UN Reports
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Dec 12, 2008 - 6:15:33 AM

Sudan: Gunmen Kill Leader of Displaced Persons Camp in Darfur, UN Reports

11 December 2008

Unidentified gunmen have shot dead the traditional leader of a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region, the latest in a series of attacks on the 2.7 million people uprooted by over five years of fighting between the Government and rebels, the United Nations reported today.

A patrol from the joint United Nations-African Union mission in Darfur (UNAMID), dispatched to Camp Hassa Hissa in West Darfur on receiving reports of the attack yesterday, confirmed that the sheikh had been killed but found the camp to be calm.

It was the second violent incident in an IDP camp this month. On 1 December two Janjaweed militiamen, usually allied with Government forces, armed with a rifle quarrelled with IDPs at Hissa Hissa camp in South Darfur. One of the militiamen was severely beaten and later died and an IDP suffered a minor injury. The other militiaman was arrested and taken into custody by Sudanese police.

The following day a dozen armed men set ablaze a water pump and five generators supplying energy to Hissa Hissa, lightly injuring one IDP. Then, too, UNAMID sent an armed team to calm down the tensions between the camp residents and the militiamen.

A day later, two gunmen equipped with AK-47 assault rifles and a hand grenade stopped a humanitarian convoy, beat up aid workers and stole money as it was on its way from Nyala, the South Darfur capital, to Kalma IDP camp.

Meanwhile, in North Darfur, UNAMID Deputy Police Commissioner for Operations Adeyemi Ogunjemilusi paid a one-day official visit to Kabkabiya as part of his familiarization tour of the mission's area of operations.