Darfur: 10 Nigerian soldiers missing, 7 killed
Ten Nigerian soldiers serving in Darfur Sudan have been confirmed missing. They are among the 40 peace keeping soldiers missing after rebels of a splinter group in the Darfur crisis attacked an African Union camp in the area on Saturday, killing scores of peacekeepers.

Seven Nigerian soldiers were killed during the attack while another seven were critically wounded from gunshots sustained when the AU peacekeepers decided to fight their way out of the attack.

Confirming the development in a telephone chat with newsmen, Col. Giwa Amu, Director of Army Public Relations, denied that nine Nigerian soldiers lost their lives in the attack, saying the soldiers were killed at Sector 8, located in Haskenita in western Darfur.
He said presently, Nigerian soldiers attached to the AU mission were conducting a search operation to see if they could locate the whereabouts of the missing soldiers.

Meanwhile, the commander of the new hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur, General Martin Luther Agwai, has blamed for a breakaway rebel faction for the attack that killed 10 African Union troops.
Speaking from the scene of the attack, General Martin Agwai told the BBC it was a splinter group "who broke away from a faction called SLA United".
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the killings were "outrageous".

General Agwai told the BBC's Focus on Africa the attackers destroyed two armoured personnel carriers, looted equipment and stole ammunition from the AU monitoring group at the base in Haskanita.
He categorically ruled out any involvement by government forces.
Next year the UN and AU will jointly deploy the world's largest peacekeeping force - 26,000 troops - to Darfur.
It will absorb the current force of 7,000 AU troops, which has been struggling to protect civilians in the region.
Meanwhile, officials in Senegal have warned that the country's force in Darfur could be withdrawn following the attack.

One Senegalese soldier was among the 10 members of the mission killed in the fighting alongside seven Nigerians, a Malian and a Botswanan.
Meanwhile, a delegation of notable world figures led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu has arrived in Sudan for talks. The archbishop is leading a delegation of "elders" that includes former UN envoy to Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi, former US President Jimmy Carter, and Graca Machel, a children's rights advocate and the wife of Nelson Mandela.
The group came together at Nelson Mandela's invitation to find ways to tackle some of the world's toughest problems, such as HIV/Aids, poverty and conflict.

The group is scheduled to meet Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and opposition leaders in Khartoum on Monday before travelling on to refugee camps in Darfur.At least 200,000 people have died in Darfur during a four-year conflict and more than two million have been forced from their homes.