Anger in North Darfur’s Tawila about ‘land annexation’

The population of Tawila locality in North Darfur strongly denounce ‘the annexation attempt' of the Kolge area by the El Shatiya, a clan of the Rizeigat tribe.

In a speech during his inauguration as Deputy Governor of North Darfur in El Fasher on Saturday, Mohamed Bereima Hasabelnabi said that the El Shatiya Arabs who were deported from Tawila locality in the past have now returned. He pledged that his government will provide them with services.

The people in Kolge, southwest of El Fasher, consider the declaration of the new deputy governor “clear evidence that the Sudanese government is resettling their allies on our lands. It is part of a well-thought-out plan to steal away our land and obliterate the identity of the Darfuris”.

Abdelaziz Sam, the spokesman for the people of Kolge told Radio Dabanga that they hold the Hasabelnabi responsible for “this huge crime, as the deputy governor is the main supervisor of these new settlements”.

He said that the people of the area will lodge a complaint at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, “as this is the only party that takes victims of injustice seriously”.

The Tawila Students Association condemned the announcement in a statement on Sunday, and accused the North Darfur government of displacing the people of the area by supporting attacks on their farms and theft of their livestock.

“The North Darfur authorities have now started in earnest to replace the indigenous people by janjaweed, who have no relation to this region at all,” the statement reads.

The students demand North Darfur Governor Abdelwahed Yousef Ibrahim to intervene.