December 21, 09

NEWS / UN staff escape injury after attack in southeast Chad

20 December 2009 – United Nations peacekeepers have helped secure an area of south-eastern Chad where a UN civilian logistics convoy came under attack from unidentified armed men earlier this morning.

The convoy was travelling between the towns of Goz Beida and Koukou Angarana when it was ambushed at gunpoint by the attackers, who commandeered one of the three vehicles in the convoy and fled, according to a press release issued by the UN peacekeeping force in Chad and the Central African Republic (known as MINURCAT).


Members of the Chadian Detachement Integre de Securite (DIS) team, which had been accompanying the convoy, then pursued the attackers and recaptured the stolen vehicle. One DIS officer was injured in the ensuing exchange of gunfire.


MINURCAT and the DIS dispatched teams to the scene to secure the area, provide medical assistance and retrieve the vehicles, the mission reported.


MINURCAT forces have trained DIS officers, comprised of Chadian police and gendarmes, to serve as part of a special security force entrusted with providing security to the campsites in eastern Chad that are home to thousands of Chadian internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees from the neighbouring Darfur region of Sudan. They are also tasked with helping to protect humanitarian workers operating in the region.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33307&Cr=MINURCAT&Cr1=