Shelling Kills UN Peacekeeper in Disputed Region on Sudan Border

Okech Francis

A United Nations peacekeeper and a four-year-old child were killed when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the main town in Abyei, a disputed region on the border of Sudan and South Sudan, a mission spokesman said.

Unidentified people launched the ammunition from a point northwest of the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei’s base, Daniel Adekera said Friday by phone from Abyei town. An investigation has begun into the attack, the second in four months, in which two other children were injured. The dead peacekeeper was from Ethiopia, he said.

The UN force in oil-rich Abyei comprises 4,366 uniformed personnel. A referendum on which country the area belongs to was promised as part of a 2005 deal that ended Sudan’s two-decade civil war and led to the south’s secession four years ago.

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