More bombs fall on Golo, Central Darfur

The Sudanese Air Force continued its bombardments on Golo locality, Jebel Marra in Central Darfur, on Sunday.

Several people from the area reported to Dabanga that an Antonov dropped 11 bombs. No casualties were reported.

“200 people who fled from Golo managed to reach Guldo,” one of them added. A coordinator at one of the Nierteti camps said that about 350 families have arrived at the camps thus far.

At the end of last year, the Sudanese government announced the start of a second “dry season offensive” to “eliminate the insurgency in Sudan for once and for all”. On 31 December, paramilitary forces began attacking villages in the Tawila locality, locally known as East Jebel Marra, in North Darfur. In January, areas in North Darfur’s Um Baru locality were bombed, and attacked by government militias.

Mid-January, government troops concentrated at Golo, and launched an attack on Sur Reng, an important rebel stronghold in Jebel Marra. The offensive was accompanied by several aerial bombardments. Reportedly, the rebel fighters managed to defeat the attackers.

Elements of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces plundered Golo and the neighbouring villages, and continuing air raids torched ten villages, as well as a number of houses in the southern part of Golo town.

The population fled into the mountains or sought refuge in the hospital and government buildings in Golo. “We are trapped in the now overcrowded buildings, without food and water, and in constant fear of being attacked by militia forces, or bombed by an Antonov,” a listener told Dabanga on Thursday.