KHARTOUM (AFP) — Two armed men on Thursday attacked six Sudanese aid workers who were carrying their colleagues' salaries to a Darfur refugee camp, a peacekeeping official said.
"Two armed men attacked a convoy which was transporting six Sudanese humanitarian workers along with their colleagues' salaries," Kamal Saequi, spokesman for the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force, told AFP.
The convoy was heading from Nyala, capital of South Darfur, to the Kalma camp and had passed two police posts before it was attacked, the spokesman said.
"The two attackers then led the four vehicles and their occupants to a place near the camp where they savagely beat and robbed them," Saequi said, adding that three of the aid workers needed hospital treatment and remain in a critical state.
The Kalma camp houses around 80,000 people in very basic conditions.
Representatives of rebel groups are among the residents and Sudanese authorities consider the camp to be a hotbed of crime.
Government sources said police have recently arrested "wanted criminals" at Kalma and seized weapons and drugs.
Conflict has been raging in the Darfur region in western Sudan since 2003, when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated regime.
UN officials estimate that up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have been forced to flee their homes.
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