UNITED NATIONS, March 17 (UPI) -- The U.N. refugee agency says a guard has been killed and two other staffers wounded at one of its compounds in southern Sudan.
One of two gunmen attacking the camp was killed. The second was apprehended.
The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refuges in Geneva said Thursday a second local guard and an international staffer were critically wounded in the Wednesday attack by two gunmen, one of whom was killed.
"This is a shocking event, and our hearts and thoughts are with the family of the deceased and with critically ill staff members fighting for their lives," UNHCR Antonio Guterres said of the attack in Yei.
The attack was on a post the agency set up in 2004 to prepare for the repatriation following a peace accord between the Khartoum government and southern rebels.
Details of the attack in Yei were still sketchy, but officials said one guard and one of the intruders were killed and a UNHCR international staff member shot in the abdomen and a local guard shot in the leg. Both were in a critical condition in hospital in Juba, the main town of the region, after being airlifted there from Yei early Thursday. An emergency medical evacuation to Nairobi, Kenya, was requested.
Six other international staffers were in the compound at the time but were not wounded. No local staff was present.
The planned repatriation of Sudanese from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Yei region, due to start next week, has been suspended while UNHCR reviews the situation.
There are 350,000 refugees from South Sudan in neighboring countries, including 13,300 in DRC, and some 4 million people displaced within Sudan.
