(Adds previous attacks, paragraph five) By Moumine Ngarmbassa N'DJAMENA, May 2 (Reuters) - The European Union military force in Chad does not have enough troops to escort humanitarian convoys in the conflict-torn eastern region where a French aid worker was killed by gunmen, a force spokesman said on Friday. Pascal Marlinge, the country head of Save the Children UK in Chad, was shot dead by gunmen on Thursday who held up his three-car convoy between the villages of Forchana and Hadjer Hadid, not far from the border with Sudan's Darfur region. The killing took place just 9 km (6 miles) east of Forchana, where French marines serving in the EU force (EUFOR) have set up a base and have been sending out regular patrols in the region, EUFOR spokesman in Chad Lt-Col Jean Axelos told Reuters. U.N. aid agencies suspended all but their most urgent work in eastern Chad for two days in a "symbolic protest", U.N. humanitarian coordination unit OCHA said in Geneva on Friday. Marlinge was the third humanitarian worker murdered in 31 attacks in eastern Chad so far this year, OCHA spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said. U.N. agencies have some 120 international staff in eastern Chad along with 400 Chadian workers. Thursday's killing raised questions about the ability of the thinly stretched EU force, which is still deploying, to carry out its mandate to protect civilians, refugees and aid workers in an area of several hundred thousand square km (miles). "If you take a map and look at the distances, it's clear that EUFOR can never be everywhere, all the time," Axelos said. EUFOR has just over 2,200 troops deployed at the moment in east Chad. The region has been racked by violence in recent years, including rebel offensives, inter-ethnic clashes and attacks by raiders from Sudan's war-torn Darfur. Axelos said the European troops were concentrating on guarding refugee camps, humanitarian installations and store depots. "In terms of troop numbers, it would be difficult for us to accompany all the convoys," he said. EUFOR commanders had agreed with humanitarian groups and NGOs, who are assisting around half a million Sudanese and Chadian civilians displaced by violence, that they could not provide individual aid convoy escorts for the moment. Axelos said Thursday's killing served to demonstrate "the indispensable character of our mission in the zone", but discussions would be held with the foreign humanitarian groups about operating procedures. DEPLOYMENT CONTINUES EUFOR is due to reach full operational strength of 3,700 troops in Chad at the end of June. Besides the French unit at Forchana, an Irish battalion is deploying at Goz Beida to the south, and a Polish battalion is expected at Iriba to the north. Dozens of vehicles used by foreign humanitarian groups have been hijacked in eastern Chad over the last two years. But while hundreds of Chadian civilians have been killed by violence, attacks against foreign relief workers have been less common. France, the former colonial power in Chad, is providing more than half the EUFOR troops. It called on Chadian authorities to investigate the killing of the French humanitarian worker. In May 2006, a Spanish woman working for the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) was shot and wounded in Abeche by a man who stole her U.N. jeep. In June last year, rebels killed a French aid worker in Central African Republic, which borders Chad. EUFOR suffered its first death in March when two French soldiers strayed across the border into Sudan. (For more information on humanitarian crises and issues visit www.alertnet.org) (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/) (Reporting and writing by Pascal Fletcher; additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, editing by Alistair Thomson and Sami Aboudi)
United Nations Special Envoy for Darfur Jan Eliasson listens during a meeting with field commanders of the Sudan Liberation Army Abdel-Wahed faction in the mountainous area of Nertiti on the edge ...
