SUDAN: The British charity Save the Children suspended its operations in south Darfur yesterday after two of its aid workers were killed during a roadside ambush.
Mr Abhakar el Tayeb, a medical assistant, and Mr Yacoub Abdelnabi Ahmed, a mechanic, were shot while travelling in a convoy of three vehicles.
The two, who were recruited in Sudan, were part of a mobile health clinic.
The suspension will disrupt medical care and food distribution less than a week after the UN said that the aid agencies were struggling to contain the humanitarian crisis.
Save the Children called its 30 staff in south Darfur back to its regional headquarters at Nyala to review the situation.
The organisation hopes the suspension will be temporary, but security in the area has been getting worse.
Its spokesman, Ms Laura Conrad, said the impact would be far-reaching. "If there are places we can't go for security reasons, it will be the same for other aid agencies."
The charity said its vehicles were clearly marked as belonging to Save the Children.
The Sudanese government blamed the shooting on the Sudanese Liberation Army.
It happened between Mershing and Duma, on the road linking Nyala and the main town in north Darfur, El Fasher.
Ms Radhia Achouri, a spokeswoman for the UN in Sudan, expressed regret for the deaths but denied an Associated Press report that the UN too had suspended its operations in south Darfur.
She said some roads were no-go areas for the UN, but this had been the case before the killings.
Mr Ken Caldwell, director of Save the Children's international operations, said: "We deplore this brutal killing of humanitarian workers in Darfur. Our deepest sympathies are with the family and friends of our Sudanese colleagues." - (Guardian Service)