GENEVA, Switzerland, July 8 (UPI) -- International aid workers have been forced to withdraw from refugee camps in Darfur after being attacked by young men with sticks and stones.
Eight aid workers were injured, none seriously, in camps serving up to 70,000 internal refugees in the war-torn region of Sudan, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva. The attacks occurred at the start of a registration process for food distribution conducted by the U.N. World Food Program.
"Initial reports from UNHCR staff indicate that as people were lining up to be registered, some groups of young men armed with sticks and stones began attacking aid workers who were supervising the registration," said Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the refugee agency.
Workers with UNHCR, WFP, the U.N. Children's Fund and all non-governmental organizations withdrew from most camps in western Darfur and were escorted to safety by African Union forces, he said.
The attacks come two weeks after the United Nations had upgraded its estimate of how many people in Darfur would need food aid, from 2.8 million to 3.5 million.
