Displaced deported from Tabit, North Darfur, as VP visits the area

Security forces in Tabit, Tawila locality in North Darfur, have taken strict measures for the visit of First Vice-President Bakri Hassan Saleh to the village on Tuesday.

The FVP will open a model village in the area, together with the Vice Prime Minister of Qatar that sponsored the project.

A newly displaced villager told Radio Dabanga that the authorities deported thousands of newly displaced people to areas at a distance of at least one kilometre from Tabit, 

The people fled repeated militia attacks on their villages south of Tabit last week. The source said that they continued to arrive on Sunday and today. “There must be more than 7,000 who fled towards Tabit.”

He and other sources reported that the authorities have been warning and directing the population of Tabit by loudspeakers throughout the day today. Any person with a grievance or a complaint should file it at the office of the Military Intelligence. It is also strictly forbidden to raise banners with anti-government slogans.

The displaced villager commented that the security warnings today are meant to “prevent the newly displaced from the possibility to raise a complaint in front of the First Vice-President and tell him the truth”.

Another source added that an Unamid aircraft landed this (Monday) afternoon near Tabit, carrying a number of Sudanese officials.

Tabit mass rape

Tabit was the scene of a 36-hour mass rape that took place end October, early November last year.

After a Sudanese soldier went missing in the village in the evening of 30 October, military forces of the nearby garrison, in what later became known as a retaliation act, entered Tabit the following day. Men and women were taken out of their houses and separated. While a number of soldiers kept and threatened the men, others raped more than 200 girls and women. They forces left the village early next morning.

Radio Dabanga received the first reports on the incidents in Tabit, in the northern outskirts of East Jebel Marra, on Sunday 2 November. Initially the local military commander apologised for the rape.

Later, authorities in the area threatened civilians not speak out about the alleged crime. The Sudanese government responded with a fierce denial. Tabit was blocked off for visitors as well as for a Unamid verification team for a week.