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One dead as Darfur students protest at UN-Qatar mediation

02 December 2010 02:55 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. One person was killed and several wounded as students clashed with security forces at a protest Wednesday against a UN-Qatari peace team in Sudanâ€™s troubled Darfur, the United Nations said, APA reports quoting AFP.
"At least one person was killed and several wounded today in Zalingei, West Darfur, when gunfire broke out during a demonstration," said the UN-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) in a statement.
Djibril Bassole, the UN-African Union chief peace negotiator for Darfur, was at the University of Zalingei with other delegation members when they were circled by students chanting slogans, said an AFP photographer at the scene.
Bassole agreed to address the demonstrators, but scuffles broke out.
The delegation, which included Qatarâ€™s minister of state for foreign affairs, Ahmad bin Abdullah al-Mahmud, left the university hall as protesters began hurling rocks.
Security forces fired in the air to disperse the crowd.
Local sources told AFP that a student, Mohammed Abdullah, was killed in the clash.
Zalingei is regarded as a stronghold of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction of Abdelwahid Nour, one of the two largest rebel movements in Darfur. It is hostile to a peace process sponsored by Qatar and mediated by Bassole.
A seven-year civil war in Darfur has killed 300,000 people and displaced nearly three million, according to the United Nations.