UN peacekeeping chief warns that conflict in Sudan is spilling into Central African Republic

The conflict in Sudan is spilling across its southwestern border into Central African Republic, a country already battered by its own conflict with rebels, the United Nations peacekeeping chief warned Thursday.

Undersecretary-General Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the U.N. Security Council that the attack that killed a U.N. peacekeeper near the country’s border with Sudan last Friday was carried out by “armed Sudanese elements.” His comments were the first identifying Sudanese armed fighters as responsible for the attack on the peacekeepers.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also said in a new report to the Security Council that vehicles suspected of belonging to the Rapid Support Forces — the key actors in Sudan’s civil war — were sighted on several occasions in the areas of Am Dafok and Aouk (Vakaga Prefecture) of Central African Republic, where U.N. peacekeepers are present.

In the report covering the period from mid-February to mid-June, Guterres said, “In the northeast (of CAR), armed incursions linked to the conflict in the Sudan continued.”

Read more: ABC News