Darfur commissioner receives death threat

The commissioner of El Geneina in West Darfur has received a threatening message on his mobile phone after the announcement of new regulation which prohibits motorcycles.

The person who has sent the death threat message remains unidentified, commissioner El Tahir Badreldin told reporters in El Geneina on Friday.

He received the message through the mobile chat application Whatsapp. 'If you do not cancel the decision to ban motorcycles, we will kill you', the message read.

Badreldin refused to retreat the motorcycle ban, which he said “has become a threat to the state security”.

On 29 May, Governor Khalil Abdallah Mohamed issued a decision to ban and confiscate motorcycles. “The series of recent murders and thefts in West Darfur were perpetrated with the use of motorcycles… most of them without license plates,” the Governor explained the decision.

The new ban came against the backdrop of the incident in the mosque and residential area of Azerni camp near El Geneina on 22 May, that resulted in the death of 11 people. Armed tribesmen on motorcycles started a shooting in the mosque and camp that evening.