Dhaka, Dec 14 (PTI): The Bangladesh Army has said that six of its personnel serving in the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan were killed and eight others were injured during a terrorist attack. “Six of our personnel in the mission were killed and eight others injured when terrorists attacked a UN base in Sudan’s Abyei region,” a military spokesman said in Dhaka on Saturday.  The defence ministry’s Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) directorate said in an initial statement that fighting was still ongoing in the region, which borders South Sudan.
South Sudan became an independent nation in 2011 through a referendum after decades of civil war with Arab majority northerners.
After midnight Saturday, the Bangladesh Army issued a statement on its Facebook page saying the authorities were continuing all-out efforts to provide necessary treatment and carry out rescue operations for the injured peacekeepers.
“It has been learnt that the situation in the area is yet to stabilise and the fight with the terrorists is continuing,” the statement said, adding that the military would share further details on the situation in due course once the information was available.
According to the BBC, citing UN officials, more than 50 people, including UN peacekeepers, have been killed in attacks in Abyei, marking it as the deadliest incident in a three-year-long series of clashes in the disputed oil-rich area claimed by both South Sudan and Sudan.
The “authorities in the Abyei Special Administrative Area” issued a statement saying a group of “rebels” joined armed youths from the Twic faction and carried out a series of “barbaric coordinated attacks”, starting Saturday morning.
Media reports suggest that there is virtually no government presence, legal justice system, or police force in Abyei.
Bangladesh is a major contributor to UN blue helmet missions, while officials suggest that currently over 6,000 personnel from the army, navy, air force, and police are deployed, particularly in warring or war-ravaged African countries, including Sudan.  The UN recently renewed its mandate for its Abyei mission, known as UNISFA, as it continues to navigate an increasingly complex landscape. PTI AR MPL MPL
(This story is published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. No editing has been done in the headline or the body by ABP Live.)
