KHARTOUM
A Sudanese authorities on Sunday sentenced three people to three years in prison each on charges of robbing two U.N. female peacekeepers in the embattled Darfur region and raping one of them.
The defendants were found guilty of breaking into the house of the two Rwandan peacekeepers serving with the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) in al-Fashir town in Darfur and stealing money, official Sudanese news agency reported.
The second defendant was also convicted of raping one of the peacekeepers, the report added.
Darfur has been ravaged by a deadly conflict since three rebel groups took up arms against the Khartoum government in 2003.
The U.N., which has described the situation in Darfur as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, has said that an estimated 300,000 people had been killed in the conflict and some 1.8 million displaced.
The Sudanese government, however, insists that the death toll does not exceed 10,000 people.
The Darfur conflict prompted in 2009 an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on a number of charges including genocide committed by government forces and allied militias.
With over 23,000 military and civilian personnel, UNAMID currently represents the world's largest UN peacekeeping mission.
For the past five years, the mission lost around 60 personnel in attacks that had been usually blamed on unidentified gunmen.
By Mohamed al-Khatem
www.aa.com.tr/en
