AU says UN officer killed by robbers in Darfur

KHARTOUM, May 26 (Reuters) A UN officer deployed to Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region to support African Union peacekeepers has been killed by robbers at his residence in el-Fasher, an African Union spokesman said on Saturday.

The spokesman said the officer was an Egyptian national deployed to Darfur as part of a United Nations light support package to assist roughly 7,000 African Union peacekeepers trying to quell violence in Sudan's west.

''The robbers entered the house, shot the officer and took some property,'' AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni said. ''He is an Egyptian military officer.'' Mezni said the officer, a lieutenant colonel, was shot and wounded yesterday evening and died of his wounds today morning in el-Fasher, the capital of north Darfur state.

He said the man was killed at a rented house used by UN personnel working with AU peacekeepers. He said the house was located about 1 km from AU force headquarters in el-Fasher.

Mezni said the acting head of the African Union mission in Sudan, Monique Mukaruliza, had ''expressed her shock and condemned the killing in the strongest terms''.

REUTERS PY KN1540