Two Aid Workers Killed in Darfur

Patronus Analytical is reporting that two aid workers were killed in Darfur last Saturday.  The two Sudanese worked for the French NGO Aide Medicale Internationale (AMI).

According to a statement released by AMI:

"Saturday, February 21st, two Sudanese members of a medical team of the French NGO Aide Médicale Internationale in Darfur were shot whilst travelling on a coach. On the road between Khor Abeche and Kurunji the bus as well as a truck ahead were stopped by a group of twenty armed men on camels. The bandits opened the fire killing two and injuring four passengers.

One nurse prescriptor and one health educator who were on their way back from a clinic, which is supported by A.M.I., were killed."

Patronus Analytical offers more detail:

"A dozen gunmen had forced a cargo truck and the passenger bus on which the AMI staff were riding to stop at the roadside in an apparent act of banditry. The gunmen then opened fire killing the two AMI staff members and wounding four other bus passengers. A third member of the AMI escaped unharmed."

UNAMID reports that the gunmen were bandits - that said, it's a fine, fine line between bandits, fractured rebel groups and disaffected Janjaweed.

(Query - are Janjaweed ever not disaffected?  A content Janjaweed would seem to be something of a contradiction in terms.)

The killings also come at a sensitive time.  The International Criminal Court (ICC) will announce on March 4th whether it is issuing an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Bashir.

(ICC Prosecutor Moreno Ocampo is going for the genocidaire hat-trick, having accused Bashir of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.)

A recent Reuters article sums up the stakes:

"But the killings took place at a time of growing fears of targeted attacks on foreign aid groups in the war-torn region.

Tensions have mounted in Darfur in the countdown to an expected decision from judges from the International Criminal Court on whether to issue an arrest warrant for Sudan's president on charges he orchestrated war crimes in the region.

Sudan's government has promised to protect U.N. and other development organisations after a decision from the Hague-based ICC. But senior officials have said they might not be able to control individual extremists who say the court is part of a Western conspiracy against Sudan."

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those killed, and let's just hope that this isn't a sign of things to come.

[Photo of a destroyed truck in Darfur - Photo from CNN / AFP / Getty]