Darfur: Security and safety remain primary concern

On Sunday, herders shot six displaced women and a child while they were collecting straw near Kutum. In a separate incident, a man was shot in Saraf Omra.

Yahya El Khoms, a leading member of the Forces for Freedom and Change, told Radio Dabanga that the incident occurred when a group of 13 women and children from the camp for displaced in Jebel district of Kutum went out to collect straw near the town on Sunday.

He explained that several armed herders beat them with batons and whips. They then shot at them. Six women and a child were injured.

“Three of them were severely wounded and had to be transferred to El Fasher Hospital. The other wounded people were hospitalised at Kutum Hospital,” he said.

Motorcycle

On Sunday, unidentified gunmen shot Ali Abakar dead in Saraf Omra.

Mohamed Khatir, a leading member of the Forces for Freedom and Change in the locality, told Radio Dabanga that gunmen shot two young men while they were riding a motorcycle on their way from Saraf Omra to Dembero Hillet Ali Yahya. “They killed one of them, Ali Abakar, and took the motorcycle,” he said.

A local search posse found the motorcycle in a house in Saraf Omra.

The activist said that the town recently witnessed a spread of violence such as rape, murder and robbery. He pointed to the re-emergence of wandering gunmen in civilian clothes at the Saraf Omra market, a return of the kadamol (a scarf covering the face), and unlicensed motorcycles.

Fire

In Shangil Tobaya camp for displaced people in North Darfur an extensive fire destroyed 16 houses enteirely and ten other houses partially. Ten goats and five donkeys were killed, a camp sheikh told Dabanga Radio.

The fire left dozens of families without shelter, he said. He appealed to the state authorities and humanitarian organisations to expedite the provision of aid to the affected people.

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