Lange,+Stewart+7

12/9/09 Unidentified gunmen dressed in civilian clothes opened fire on a group of 20 rwanden peacekepping soldiers in Sudan's Darfur region on Dec. 4. The attackers opened fire with automatic weapons and killed two Rwandan soldiers and critically wounde three others (BBC says three killed and two injured). The attackers escaped on foot but it is belived that at least one is wounded. There is no account on how many there were. "It was the worst kind of ambush -- an ambush in a crowd," UNAMID communications chief Kemal Saiki said, "You have to praise the courage of the peacekeepers. They returned fire but they kept their heads and kept it under control. If they hadn't, we could have been facing many civilian casualties." They are not sure why they launched the attack, which took place near houses and a market not far from a Sudanese government checkpoint about 2 km (one mile) from a UNAMID base in Saraf Omra. The survivors were airlifted to a hospital in north Darfur's capital El Fasher. The group of Rwandan soldiers were escorting a tanker to a water point on the outskirts of the north Darfur settlement of Saraf Omra when they were attacked at about 4:45pm (1345 GMT).

Rueters AlertNet: [] BBC: [] Both articles covered this story really well. The main difference is the body count. BBC says hat three were killed and two critically injured, while Rueters says that two were killed ant three were critically injured. This is a huge difference. One thing that amazed me was the title of the BBC article was TWO RWANDAN SOLDIERS KILLED... this makes me wonder. Also Reuters had the quotes from Kemal Saiki the UNAMID comunications cheif. Otherwise there wern't that many other differences.

I think this was a very unfourtanate incident and I feel sorry for the families of the soldiers that were killed. Also I hope the injured soldiers will survive. I do not understand what the rebels will get from this attack as everybody will like them less now and the Rwandan peacekeeping force will probably hunt them down and attack them. I also wonder if the violence in Sudan will ever stop.