Four die in Darfur highway robberies

Four people were killed and others wounded in separate violent incidents of highway robbery in West and North Darfur on Monday and Tuesday.

Witnesses from West Darfur told Radio Dabanga a group of armed ‘militiamen’ intercepted a commercial vehicle on its way from Beida to Misterei on Tuesday. The bandits opened fire on the vehicle and three people were killed, including a soldier affiliated with the armed movements. Three other people were wounded during the robbery. They were transferred to El Geneina Teaching Hospital.

In a separate incident in West Darfur, gunmen riding motorcycles fired volleys of bullets at a vehicle near Um Tajouk, which led to the killing of a soldier affiliated with the Rapid Support Forces named as Gaddafi Yahya Adam (32) years old, who lived in the Um Tajouk Administrative Unit.

In North Darfur, gunmen intercepted and pillaged a Land Cruiser belonging to Suleiman Adam on Tuesday evening, in the Abu Sakin area of Kutum locality. A hail of bullets was fired at the vehicle, which damaged all four tires, as well as the carburettor, which brought the vehicle to a halt.

Callers said that the gunmen stole and made off with all of the passengers’ property.

Muhammad Khater told Radio Dabanga that four armed men with Kalashnikovs, two of them wearing military uniforms, intercepted four vehicles as they were returning from the weekly market in Saraf Omra to Amtjok.

He explained that the gunmen looted all the money and property of the passengers of the vehicles and opened fire, which led to the injury of Gaddafi Yahya and his later death of his injuries. He said that in Saraf Omra in North Darfur, armed men robbed the passengers of four vehicles on road to Nyala on Sunday. A man named only as Abdullah was killed in the Um Zayfaiya area, east of Saraf Omra, on Monday.

The robberies follow a pattern of lawlessness that results in daily reports of attacks and abuses by marauding armed groups across Darfur. A water project director was dragged from his vehicle and stabbed to death, and another man is in critical condition in hospital following at least five cases of armed robbery across El Fasher, capital of North Darfur on Saturday evening.