Community leaders detained in Central Darfur as they refuse to cooperate with RSF

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) detained six people, including tribal leaders and administrators, in Um Dukhun, Central Darfur, in the past two days. The paramilitaries insist on a 50 per cent share of the locality’s revenues.

Speaking to Radio Dabanga from Um Dukhun town, listener Salem El Nau reported that the RSF held Abdelmonim Osman, native administration leader and staff member of an INGO, Omda Taher Bahar, tax collector Hafez Mousa, and financial controller Ali Hamdan, and two other men on Monday and yesterday. “They were taken to the offices of the former security apparatus.”

The RSF is still keeping several locality offices closed, including those of the Um Dukhun Committee for Regional Management and the Fees Collection office, the source said. “The paramilitaries allowed the Chamber of Commerce to reopen, and the community police made up of members of the various tribes in the area, to continue their work in maintaining security.”

He explained that the RSF “established a support committee. They now demand the formation of a joint committee between this support group and members of the regional management committee, which consists of all tribes of the region, in addition to control of the Fees collection Committee and the spending of the revenues.”

The Committee for Regional Management continues meeting with the RSF commanders in Um Dukhun to convince them to open the rest of the offices in the town.

After battles broke out between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in April last year, native administration and other community leaders in Um Dukhun formed a committee from members of the 36 tribes in the locality to fill the administrative vacuum caused by the war and to protect the area.

Subcommittees such as the Peace and Reconciliation Council and a Fees Collection Committee were established, as well as a community police, consisting of five members of each tribe, to guard the markets and handle official complaints.

“This worked well until Tuesday, when an RSF force came to the town and closed the offices of the committees, demanding 50 percent of the revenues,” a source told Radio Dabanga last week.

El Nau yesterday explained that stopping the work of the committees “may increase in tribal frictions and lead the people living in Um Dukhun to seek refuge in Chad.

The revenues are spent on fuel and aids for the Um Dukhun Hospital, the protection of the market, and fuel and petty cash for the Peace and Reconciliation Committee, he noted. “The situation in the hospital is deteriorating and thefts and plundering increased after the RSF obstructed the work of the committee and caused the cessation of the fees collection.”

The source explained that “the community leaders here categorically refuse to cooperate with the RSF unit, as it is based in South Darfur”.