Disturbances in Darfur town as populace face security

Security authorities burnt parts of the market Nertiti on Saturday morning and briefly detained at the same time more than 200 citizens. The events followed the killing of one of the members of security service who had been guarding the service’s headquarters in Nertiti on Friday night. After the killing, members of the security went in the early hours of Saturday morning to the house of a policeman working as a bodyguard for the commissioner of Nertiti, according to witnesses. They shot him dead on the spot.Witnesses said that security agents were deployed in the morning in the market and undertook a large-scale operation of arrests against citizens living near the headquarters of the security service, in the area of the old council and the house of the town emir. The witnesses said that the campaign was accompanied by severe beating and abuses, and raids into homes of the citizens. The security men burnt more than 13 stands in the market and then started asking citizens who had set fire in the market, arresting and beating those whom they asked. The commissioner of the town eventually intervened and asked the security authorities to stop and release all of the detainees. The security responded by releasing all of them the same day, Saturday.

Citizens of Nertiti met Sunday morning with the commissioner and asked him to protect them and their property from the security service, whom they said had left the law and become like gang members. They referred to prior incidents in Nertiti and arrests of citizens. The commissioner agreed to try to transfer the headquarters of the security from the city to another site outside. The head of security in West Darfur was reported to have headed to Nertiti on Monday to arrest the crisis.