UNITED NATIONS, July 25 (UPI) -- There's a long way to go before the situation in Sudan's troubled Darfur region comes to a peaceful resolution, the head of a peacekeeping mission said.
A July 3 attack in the region left seven Tanzanian members of the African Union-U.N. Hybrid Operation in Darfur dead and 17 other peacekeepers and police injured. Two aid workers were killed in early July during fighting in Darfur. The attack coincided with an assassination attempt on Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb, accused of committing war crimes during the genocide in Darfur early last decade.
Ibn Chambas, director of the joint peacekeeping mission known as UNAMID, said violence in Darfur was now in its 10th year.
"UNAMID has continued to strongly encourage all parties to these inter-ethnic conflicts, and relevant civil society actors, to enter into dialogue with a view of addressing the root causes of the clashes and developing a common vision for their resolution," he said in a statement Wednesday.
Chambas said he was concerned by lingering fighting between rebel and pro-government forces in Darfur, adding he was particularly concerned by the enduring nature of the conflict.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir left a Nigerian conference on HIV hosted last week by the African Union amid calls for his arrest on war crimes charges related to the genocide in Darfur.
