Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said yesterday he may pull his country's troops out of Darfur after African peacekeepers were killed in an attack at the weekend.
Twenty African Union (AU) soldiers were killed or injured and nine missing after an attack on the Haskanita base in Darfur on Saturday night by armed men in 30 vehicles, who looted and destroyed the base, the AU said.
The attack, which is being blamed on rebel factions, was the worst single attack on AU forces since the 7,000-strong mission was deployed to western Sudan in 2004.
"If they died because they didn't have the arms to defend themselves, I will withdraw all the Senegalese . . . I am not going to send people to be slaughtered," he said, adding he had ordered an investigation into the attack.
Senegal has one of the largest contingents in Darfur and has taken casualties in the past. Most of the infantry in Haskanita was Nigerian, but military observers were from various countries.
The AU has long complained of a lack of equipment in Darfur, and it has said its force was too small to contain the conflict in the vast and arid region the size of France.