GENEVA (Reuters) – An humanitarian worker was killed in Sudan earlier on Friday after his vehicle was hit by crossfire as he tried to move his family to safety, the International Organization for Migration said.
The Sudanese man is the fourth U.N. employee to be killed since fighting broke out six days ago between the army and a paramilitary force. Gunfire ripped through the capital Khartoum at the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al Fitr on Friday, with the army deployed on foot in the city.
“I am deeply saddened by the death of our humanitarian colleague, and join his wife and newborn child, and our team in Sudan in mourning,” said Director-General Antonio Vitorino.
The worker was travelling with his family near El Obeid, a town southwest of Khartoum, when he was shot, the IOM said. “He was relocating his family at the time,” an IOM spokesperson told Reuters. The organisation, which helps meet the needs of some 3.7 million displaced people in the country, said in the same statement that its work in Sudan was currently suspended.
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(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Madeline Chambers)
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