Seven peacekeepers were killed and 17 wounded in an ambush Saturday on a patrol in South Darfur, the United Nations said.
A joint patrol of the African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) came under heavy fire in daylight from a "large, unidentified group," about 25 kilometres west of the mission's Khor Abeche team site, mission commanders said in a statement.
After an "extended" firefight, UNAMID reinforcements from Khor Abeche and another mission site arrived to extract the patrol.
The dead were all UNAMID military peacekeepers. The wounded were both military and police members of the mission, including two female Police women serving as police advisers, UNAMID said in a statement issued from El Fasher, provincial capital of North Darfur.
UNAMID joint special representative Mohamed Ibn Chambas "condemned in the strongest possible terms those responsible for this heinous attack on our peacekeepers. The perpetrators should be on notice that they will be pursued for this crime and gross violation of international humanitarian law."
UNAMID has been working in Darfur since 2007 under a UN Security Council mandate.