20100413
africagoodnews

Four UN peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region are still missing after 24 hours of search and rescue. The soldiers with UNAMID, a joint AU-UN peacekeeping force left their team site just outside Nyala in south Darfur on Sunday and nothing has been heard about them, according to UNAMID spokesman.

The spokesman Kemal Saiki also expressed concerns about the wellbeing of the missing peacekeepers, while it has informed the Sudanese authorities about the four soldiers, reported RTT News.

Darfur has witnessed a wave of kidnappings of foreign aid workers ever since ethnic Africans in the region took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum in 2003 to fight discrimination. UN estimates that about 300,000 people have been killed and some 2.5 million displaced in the unrest.

The UNAMID had taken over peacekeeping duties in the troubled Darfur region in January 2008 from the AU peacekeeping force. Since its deployment, the UNAMID has been the target of several deadly attacks.

The latest development comes as Sudan's election commission extended the voting in the country's landmark elections by two more days because of technical problems. The voting in the three-day elections was originally scheduled to run from Sunday through Tuesday, but commission spokesman Salah Habib said Monday that the polling would be now end only on Thursday.