KHARTOUM (AFP) ? Sudan on Friday rejected charges it deliberately delayed a UN helicopter evacuation of peacekeepers fatally wounded in the disputed Abyei region, insisting it acted in "the shortest time" possible.
Four Ethiopian peacekeepers were killed in a landmine blast in the Abyei village of Mabok on Tuesday and seven others were wounded, three of them critically.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday protested to the Sudanese government over the delay in transferring the soldiers to hospital, which some diplomats said could have cost the lives of three of the peacekeepers.
One of the Ethiopians died at the scene of the blast but three others died a few hours later, UN officials said.
"When the UN asked for permission to fly from Kadugli to Abyei, they got permission in three hours, which is the shortest time you can get such permission," foreign ministry spokesman Al-Obeid Meruh told AFP.
"Any allegations that Sudan delayed the UN flight to rescue the injured soldiers in Abyei are totally incorrect," he added.
The United Nations ordered a medical evacuation helicopter from a UN base at Kadugli, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) northeast of Abyei town, to collect the troops.
But UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy told reporters it was blocked for more than three hours by Sudanese troops.
"They prevented us from taking off by threatening to shoot the helicopters," Le Roy said.
Abyei is hotly disputed by Sudan and South Sudan and the 4,200-strong Ethiopian peacekeeping force was ordered in after northern troops occupied the border territory in May.
The army's occupation prompted more than 100,000 ethnically southern civilians to flee to the south. The northern troops were to have left Abyei after the arrival of the UN force but have not yet started the promised withdrawal.
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