Darfur rebels claim holding Ghanaian peacekeeper

KHARTOUM, Feb. 20-- A major armed rebel group in Sudan's Darfur region claimed Monday that it was holding 52 international peacekeepers of the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission UNAMID.

Gibril Ibrahim, spokesman of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said that "The held members of UNAMID include 46 Senegalese, one Yemeni officer, one from Rwanda, and one from Ghana, besides three Sudanese. We believe they work for the Sudanese intelligence and security service."

Ibrahim told Xinhua on phone that the peacekeepers were not abducted, but "only being held" by the group.

"We are holding the UNAMID soldiers because they entered our territory without our permission," the spokesman said.

The rebel spokesman said all the held peacekeepers were fine and at a safe place. "They have been held at a safe place and they are fine. We are waiting for a justification from the mission on why this force moved into the movement's areas," he said.

He added that the group also suspected the Sudanese soldiers accompanying the peacekeepers were working for the Sudanese security services.

The UNAMID could not be reached for a comment on the event at the moment.

"This event came only few days after the movement asked for signing an agreement between it and the UNAMID to facilitate the work of the mission in Darfur, but Ibrahim Gambari, the chief of UNAMID, refused the signing of this agreement," he noted.

He further criticized the UNAMID chief for not being "neutral" in the mission, saying that "yes, we have a big difference with Gambari. He has become a persona non grata in Darfur. We demand him to resign."

"We believe that the force we are holding was on a mission to bring information for the interest of Khartoum. This is a clear violation for the UNAMID task in Darfur," the spokesman said.

UNAMID, which was deployed 2008 in Darfur as a peacekeeping mission, has encountered repeated attacks by unidentified gunmen in the region, which led to the death of more than 34 peacekeepers.

Source:English.news.cn