Displaced men abducted in North Darfur

Militiamen abducted two men from the Sortony camp for displaced people in North Darfur on Sunday.

Hussein Yagoub Mohamed and Adam Idris Adam were attacked on the road southeast of Kabkabiya, between Barda and the camp where they live.

They have been taken to an unknown destination, a source in Sortony camp reported to Radio Dabanga.

Sortony, adjacent to the base of the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping Mission in Darfur (Unamid), is a site where people displaced from the mountainous Jebel Marra in Darfur in early 2016 have sought refuge. Increased hostilities between the Sudan Armed Forces and the Abdel Wahid faction of the Sudan Liberation Army have forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes to other areas in the Darfur region, including Sortony.

Tensions in Sortony escalated in May last year, when herders accused members of the displaced community of stealing their livestock and demanded the return of their cattle. Armed herders then established an intermittent blockade on the Kabkabiya-Sortony road, an essential route for the provision of water and humanitarian aid. 

Last year Unamid estimated that some 22,000 displaced people are at the site; community leaders put the figure at 37,000.