Former rebels beat, rob South Darfur Commissioner

A group of former rebel combatants assaulted the South Darfur Humanitarian Aid Commissioner in Nyala on Sunday.

Commissioner Jamal Yousef was subjected to severe beating, when he paid a visit to the office of the Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) Commission in Nyala, where demobilised former rebels had gathered to demand their entitlements. They robbed him of SDG 3,400 ($573) in cash, and a mobile phone worth SDG 7,500 ($1,265).

Yousef told reporters in Nyala that the assailants had confused his name with an accountant of the Humanitarian Aid Commission, also called Jamal.

The DDR programme is part of security arrangements stipulated in the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur, which was first signed by the Liberation and Justice Movement and the Sudanese government in 2011. The Justice and Equality Movement faction JEM-Sudan signed the peace document in April 2013.

It was not until August this year that the integration of the former rebel combatants into the Sudan Armed Forces was launched in El Fasher, capital of North Darfur.