KHARTOUM, Sudan — About 200 gunmen on horseback and in SUVs launched a brazen attack on international peacekeepers in Darfur, killing seven in the deadliest strike against the underequipped and understaffed mission since it deployed, the U.N. said Wednesday.
Twenty-two members of the U.N.-African Union force were wounded in the fierce two-hour gun battle Tuesday by militants who outnumbered them nearly 3-to-1.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s office said the joint military and police patrol was investigating the killing of civilians in North Darfur state when it was ambushed by militants driving vehicles armed with anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons.
Five Rwandan soldiers and two police officers, one from Ghana and the other from Uganda, were killed.
“We are outraged by the attack,” said Shereen Zorba, deputy spokeswoman of the U.N.-African Union mission known as UNAMID. “We are not part of the conflict but a tool to alleviate the suffering of civilians..”
Hindered by a lack of crucial equipment, the joint U.N.-African Union force has struggled to fulfill its mission since deploying Jan. 1 with about 9,000 soldiers and police officers.
The force is authorized to have 26,000 members, but it is faced with chronic shortages of staff and equipment and less-than-adequate cooperation from the Sudanese government.
