KHARTOUM, March 6 (Reuters) - Two African Union peacekeepers were killed and one was seriously wounded in Sudan's violent west when former Darfur rebel troops opened fire on them, an AU statement said on Tuesday. The death tally brought to 11 the number of AU personnel killed since it started its mission in Darfur in 2004. "Two AU Protection Force soldiers were abducted and subsequently killed. A third soldier was critically injured," the statement said. "This deplorable and condemnable act was perpetrated by gunmen believed to be elements belonging to SLM (Minni), which is in full control of Gereida," it added. Minni Arcua Minnawi, leader of the only faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement to sign a peace deal in May last year, has since lost much ground in Darfur and been sidelined in Khartoum. In Gereida last year one aid worker was raped during a coordinated attack on humanitarian agencies in the town which is controlled by Minni forces. The world's largest aid operation is underway in Darfur where experts estimate 200,000 have been killed since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing the central government of marginalising the region. More than 130,000 Darfuris languish in makeshift camps around Gereida town, the largest camp in the remote west, where 2.5 million people were driven from their homes. One AU source said the dead AU soldiers were Nigerian. On March 1 the AU said one of its civilian personnel had been attacked in the force's headquarters in Darfur's main town of el-Fasher. On Tuesday the AU said former rebel forces surrounded an office in el-Fasher and threatened the officer in charge. Khartoum says the security situation is good in Darfur and that the Western media is exaggerating the conflict. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir rejects a U.N. Security Council resolution authorising some 22,500 U.N. troops and police to take over the struggling AU force. The AU itself has come under attack by Darfuris angry that it cannot protect them as well as rebel groups who accused the mission of being biased because it mediated the 2006 peace deal.
