Thirteen Sudanese police officers were killed and 30 wounded in clashes with an armed gang as they tried to rescue three unidentified hostages in the war-torn Darfur region, police said on Friday. "What happened yesterday involved an armed gang, not a rebel group. The police tried to release three hostages in eastern Jebel Marra. Clashes broke out with the gang and we lost 13 men and 30 others were wounded," Ahmed al-Tughani told AFP.
He was unable to provide further details, including on the identity of the hostages, and when contacted, the UN-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) had no information on the botched rescue mission. But Sudanese newspaper Al-Ahdath, citing police sources, said one of the hostages was an Italian, another was a businessman from Nyala, the state capital of South Darfur, and the third was a police officer.
Last month, Italian humanitarian worker Francesco Azzara, who worked at a child-care centre in Nyala, was kidnapped as he was driving to the airport. Azzara, 34, was in charge of logistics at the paediatric centre opened in Nyala by the charity Emergency in July 2010.
The Italian foreign ministry said on Friday that there were "no links between the case of Azzara" and the police operation, a claim supported by Emergency's president Cecilia Strada. "According to our local sources, it appears that the police operation in Sudan does not concern our staff member Francesco Azzara," she was quoted as telling Italy's ANSA news agency.