Four dead in South Kordofan armed robberies

A police station and an ambulance were torched by angry residents in Rashad locality in South Kordofan on Tuesday evening, after two young men were shot dead by armed robbers, and a third severely injured. Another person died and several were wounded in a separate incident of highway robbery east of Kadugli.

Callers from the area told Radio Dabanga that an armed group threatened to rob young men sitting in front of their house at around 21:00 on Tuesday. When they resisted, the gunmen opened fire on them, killing two of them outright, and seriously wounding a third, who had to be taken to El Obeid Hospital in North Kordofan.

They explained that a search posse formed by relatives of the victims followed the perpetrators who fled, leaving a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a mobile phone, and a shawl. It was later discovered that the weapon belongs to a policeman in the area.

They pointed out that angry protests erupted when the relatives of the dead men objected to what they described as “the police department’s delay in the procedures, and an attempt to obliterate evidence.”

During the protest, the police station was torched, as well as an ambulance that was parked nearby.

A person was killed and others were seriously injured, on Tuesday, in a shooting by gunmen on commercial vehicles near the armed forces checkpoint in El Sereig area, east of Kadugli, capital of South Kordofan. Gunmen also robbed people on the Kadugli-Hajar El Foul Market road on Monday.

One of the victims told Radio Dabanga that gunmen intercepted a group of commercial vehicles on their way from Kadugli to Hajar El Foul market, killing a person, damaging tyres and stealing substantial sums of money from merchants.

He pointed out that attacks and armed robberies on the Hajar El Foul Market road, southeast of Kadugli, have become frequent, causing a state of terror among merchants and heavy property losses.

Other sources who spoke to Radio Dabanga, accused the regular forces of complicity in the crimes, pointing to the repeated attempts to close the market, to have the merchants return to other markets in the area controlled by the army.

In a separate incident on Monday, gunmen wearing uniforms of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) robbed travellers of money and valuables on the Kadugli-Hajar El Foul Market road.

One of the victims told Radio Dabanga that five masked gunmen wearing RSF uniforms blocked the way of a tuk-tuk rickshaw carrying seven people, including two women, on Monday.

The gunmen severely beat the passengers before stealing the motor, mobile phones and merchants’ goods. He explained that the victims informed the authorities, but they did not move.

Radio Dabanga tried to contact the Governor of South Kordofan, Mousa Jabur, to comment on the events, but was unable to reach him.