Johannesburg - A South African soldier was killed and another seriously injured in an attack by gunmen on their unit in the conflict-hit western Sudanese province of Darfur, the South African defence department said Thursday.

The troops were about 3 kilometres from their base at Kutum in the north of the province on Wednesday when unknown gunmen approached them at a water point and opened fire, defence forces spokesman Brigadier General Kwena Mangope told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in Johannesburg.

South Africa has 900 troops serving with the hybrid African Union-United Nations (UNAMID) force trying to secure Darfur, where a five-year-old ethnic-based conflict has claimed at least 300,000 lives and displaced 2.5 million people, according to the UN.

The injured soldier was transferred to a UN hospital at the UNAMID base at al-Fasher in a "serious but stable condition," Mangope said.

The number of peacekeepers in Darfur has increased in recent months.

In July, seven foreign troops were killed and 22 injured in a ambush while on patrol in West Darfur.

UNAMID currently has about 9,000 and police personnel in Darfur, well below the authorized strength of nearly 30,000 personnel.

The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 when black tribesmen took up arms against what they called decades of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in Khartoum. (dpa)