Oct 10, 2005 (ADDIS ABABA) — The African Union on Monday condemned the killings and kidnappings of personnel in Sudan’s Darfur region and said it would refer to to the U.N. Security Council for action on the deteriorating security situation there, a senior diplomat said Monday.

The AU’s Peace and Security Council "unreservedly condemned" the weekend violence against AU personnel and demanded the immediate release of the two remaining captives kidnapped by one of the Darfur rebel groups, said Esaw Koffi, ambassador of Togo, which is currently chairing the council.

Koffi, who spoke to journalists after an emergency session of the council called to discuss the Darfur crisis, did not say what action the African Union expects the U.N. Security Council to take.

The AU has also asked the Sudanese government to process the necessary paperwork to allow the release of 105 armed personnel vehicles, "necessary for the protection of our personnel," in Darfur and which are currently sitting in Dakar, Koffi said.

Before the meeting began, Baba Gana Kingibe, AU’s top envoy in Darfur, had said, "The international community should be very alarmed by these events because the situation is getting out of hand and we are sliding backwards."

He said, "We have had some very terrible tragedies, but this is one of the lowest points, if not the lowest, that we have had."

On Sunday, the AU accused one of the Darfur rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army, of ambushing an AU patrol a day earlier and killing two Nigerian soldiers and two Sudanese drivers attached to the team in South Darfur _ the first fatalities suffered by the pan-African body since it deployed peacekeepers to Darfur in April 2004.

Kingibe said Monday that the AU was still investigating the killings and it was too early to conclude who was responsible.

"We must not take this at face value and we are investigating," Kingibe said. "Things may not be as they appear. What interest would the (Sudan Liberation Army) SLA have in killing our troops, whose interest would it serve?"

An AU spokesman in Khartoum, Sudan said that a faction of another Darfur rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, on Sunday released 36 members of an African Union team, including an American monitor, they had kidnapped earlier in the day.

The AU military high commander went to the Tine region in west Darfur, near the border with Chad, to negotiate the release of the two remaining captives, Noureddine Mezni said Monday.

The African Union called the rebel killings and kidnappings major violations of a shaky cease-fire deal aimed at ending the Darfur conflict that started in 2003 and has claimed the lives of more than 180,000 people.

The violence began after rebels took up arms against government forces against for what it regarded as years of state neglect. Sudanese authorities are accused of subsequently unleashing militias known as the Janjaweed against the rebels and fanning a conflict that has sparked what the U.N. has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

(AP/ST)