Arrests as government forces besiege Turr in Darfur’s Jebel Marra

Government forces formed a cordon around Turr in Kass locality, South Darfur, popularly known as west Jebel Marra at 4 am on Friday and conducted large-scale house-to-house searches, beating and humiliating the residents.

At least 10 displaced people were arrested from their homes during the search.

One of the residents from Turr reported that the detainees included Sheikh Abdallah Ahmed Abdelmajid (60), Sheikh Abdelmutalib Abdallah Abdelshafi (37), Mohamed Suleiman Omar (32) and Adam Abdallah (42).

Shelling

In the past week, six people were killed and many others wounded by shelling in western and southern Jebel Marra. At least two villages burned to ashes. Earlier this month, a woman and her 5-years-old son were killed by a shell in Kass. On May 25, a woman lost her legs after government forces shelled Sabun El Fagur in southern Jebel Marra with heavy artillery.

In early March, the Sudanese army and allied militias began to attack various areas in the mountainous Jebel Marra region, in an attempt to eliminate the last strongholds of the Sudan Liberation Movement under the leadership of Abdelwahid El Nur (SLM-AW).

Since this time, at least 50,000 people fled the fighting and militia attacks on their villages.