Blue Nile: Five Sudanese killed in ‘ethnically-motivated’ attack

Five people were killed and five others went missing in an “ethnically-motivated” attack in the area of El Azaza in El Roseires on Monday. There is a shortage of basic goods and services in Blue Nile region* following violence between various groups. 

The victims of the attack were on their way from eastern Wad El Mahi to the capital Ed Damazin, when the bus they were riding in was intercepted by a group of men, a listener told Radio Dabanga. 

The attackers forced ten passengers to disembark “on the basis of their ethnic identity,” he said. “Five of them managed to escape, but five others were stabbed to death with knives and other sharp tools.” 

He explained that because of the scarcity of commodities that reach Wad El Mahi and the surrounding area after the clashes, people are forced to travel to Ed Damazin to buy food.  

Arafat El Sadig, Governor of El Roseires, denied that any security incidents had taken place on Sunday. He told Radio Dabanga that there has been a “great turnout” of students in the area after the El Roseires Governorate arranged for classes to resume in two schools on Tuesday.  

Students will go to school in two shifts to accommodate students from the schools that have been turned into shelter centres for the displaced, and the extra number of displaced students.

The Blue Nile region is suffering from food and medicine shortages, Human Aid Commissioner Ramadan Yasin told Radio Dabanga on Monday. In addition, there is a serious lack of temporary classrooms (tents) for the many displaced in the region.  

Yasin said that the security situation is stable at the moment, and international and national aid teams are now able to conduct field surveys in the areas affected by the recent violence in Wad El Mahi. 

Fighting in Wad El Mahi, south-east of El Roseires, started in mid-July, when indigenous El Funj, El Hamaj, Berta and other tribesmen attacked Hausa families in the area. The violence, allegedly triggered by political motives, flared up again in September. In October, new, fierce attacks took place in Wad El Mahi. More than 200 people have died so far. Thousands have been displaced. 

* On August 8, Gen Ahmed El Omda, Governor of the Blue Nile region (formerly Blue Nile state), issued a number of decrees based on the October 2020 Juba Peace Agreement (JPA) by which the seven Blue Nile localities Ed Damazin, El Roseires, Wad El Mahi, Bau, Geisan, El Tadamon, and Kurmuk became ‘governorates’. International IDEA stated in an analysis last year that though the Blue Nile and [South and West] Kordofan protocol incorporated in the JPA grants autonomy to these areas, it does not specifically provide that they become a region.