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U.S. aid worker wounded as convoy attacked in Sudan

Los Angeles Times

UNITED NATIONS – A 26-year-old U.S. aid official was shot in the face in Sudan’s Darfur region Tuesday when her convoy was ambushed, an incident likely to lend more urgency to a new U.S. push to resolve the humanitarian crisis in the African nation.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the United States has demanded an investigation into the attack, which occurred in daylight on a road the United Nations believed to be safe. Officials said the vehicle carrying the U.S. Agency for International Development employee clearly indicated that it belonged to a humanitarian agency.

Ereli said it was too early to know whether the worker was targeted because she was a U.S. official “but obviously that possibility is … on our minds.” The employee was not identified, and her wounds were not life-threatening.

The shooting comes as U.S. officials are promoting a new strategy to break a Security Council stalemate on a resolution for Sudan.

The United States has separated its resolution on Darfur, in Sudan’s west, into three parts – peacekeeping, sanctions and accountability – because disagreement over how to punish Sudanese war criminals was delaying the deployment of badly needed peacekeepers and observers to Sudan.

“We have literally run out of time on Sudan, and we felt we had to move ahead,” said U.S. deputy ambassador Anne Patterson.

The United States has asked for a vote Thursday on a resolution authorizing 10,000 peacekeepers for Sudan.

“It’s clear there is very broad support for the peacekeeping resolution and that is very, very critical because it will strengthen the new government in Sudan and get more boots on the ground,” Patterson said, referring to the administration being put in place after recent peace accords with southern rebels.

Negotiations concerning the Darfur crisis had stalled over penalties for militia and government leaders who are accused of causing thousands of people to die and about 2 million others to be driven from their land in two years of systematic attacks.