Darfur newly displaced living rough, farmer killed, robberies continue

Hundreds of villagers who recently fled to Zamzam camp in North Darfur are in urgent need of food and shelter. A man was injured in an armed robbery near Kabkabiya on Tuesday. In South Darfur, a young farmer was shot dead.

Farmers from the area of Gereida told Radio Dabanga yesterday that secondary school student El Rabee Hussein and his younger brother Noureldin were tending their crops on Tuesday, when militant herders entered their livestock on the farm.

When the brothers protested, the attackers shot at them. El Rabee was killed instantly. His injured brother had to be transferred to the hospital of Gereida.

The sources complained that armed herders regularly release their cattle and camels on their farms at gunpoint, destroying their livestock, “while the government is even unable to protect itself”.

Zamzam camp

In North Darfur, the humanitarian situation of the newly displaced in Zamzam camp, south of the North Darfur capital of El Fasher, is worsening because of an acute shortage of food, blankets, and shelter materials.

A displaced community leader reported an outbreak of diseases among the children and the elderly. Many are also suffering from malnutrition.

He described the situation in the area as “unstable”. People are afraid to travel far from the camp as gunmen continue to block roads linking the area of Tabit with Zamzam.

He called on “the authorities to take urgent steps to provide security in the area and allow humanitarian organisations to deliver aid to the affected people”.

On December 6, four herders were killed in an attack on a passenger vehicle near Zamzam camp. In response, their tribesmen attacked villages in the vicinity of the camp the next day. Four people, among them two children, were killed. Seven others went missing. Hundreds of villagers fled to the camp.

Robbery

In Kabkabiya, a displaced man was injured when the commercial vehicle he was travelling in on Tuesday was ambushed.

Armed men riding on four motorcycles intercepted the vehicle that was on its way from Kabkabiya camp for the displaced to the Sabarna market, about 50 kilometres from Kabkabiya town, an eyewitness told Radio Dabanga.

She said that the attackers beat the passengers, and robbed them of their money and belongings. One passenger was wounded.