♦ News you might have missed this week ♦

A compact weekly digest of Dabanga Sudan's highlights of the news from Darfur and Sudan

♦ Renewed Border Guards raids in North Darfur: 'Six dead, wounded'

November 10 – 2015 KUTUM At least six people were killed or injured, and one child has been kidnapped, in a renewed raid by Sudanese paramilitary forces in a village north of Kutum on Sunday. A force of Border Intelligence Guards members, reportedly moving in 15 vehicles and riding camels, entered Hillet Nurein Suleiman, 60 kilometres north of Kutum, on Sunday. They slaughtered Sheikh Mohamed Nur Khater (70) and Ismail Faki Nur. The attackers have taken a 10-year-old child, Abdallah, with them, along with the money of the villagers and their livestock.

A witness told Radio Dabanga that three villagers sustained injuries during the raid. “This is the third attack of its kind in villages north of Kutum in less than a month, by militant herdsmen of the Abbala tribe, and Border Guards,” he claimed.

Border Guards is the popular term for the Border Intelligence Brigade, which is part of the Sudanese Military Intelligence. A number of members raided villages in Kutum from September to mid-October. They renewed their attacks on Sunday.
The force moved from Damrat Guba to attack Hillet Nurain Suleiman. “The villagers have handed over a list of names of the attackers to the authorities in El Fasher. They are waiting for the police to arrest them.”

♦ Malaria spreads in West, whooping cough in North Darfur

November 8 – 2015 EL GENEINA / EL SEREIF The people living in El Geneina camps for the displaced in West Darfur complain about the spread of malaria, along with a shortage of affordable medicines. As of 28 October, 410 cases of whooping cough have been reported in a locality in North Darfur, according to the Sudanese Ministry of Health.

An elder of West Darfur's El Riyadh camp said that about ten months ago malaria began to spread in the El Geneina camps. “Especially among children,” he told Radio Dabanga last weekend. “The health centres in the camps receive about 30 patients per day. Dozens of more patients return home each day without having seen a doctor.”

A joint team from the Sudanese Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) arrived in El Geneina, capital of West Darfur, on Thursday, to assess the health situation in the state. It recorded 210 viral haemorrhagic fever patients since 29 August, and 83 of them have died. Samples taken from West Darfur patients tested positive for West Nile virus, Chikungunya virus, and Dengue virus. A country director of the WHO told reporters in El Geneina that the organisation is ready to provide substantive and technical support to address the epidemic.

The whooping cough outbreak in El Sereif Beni Hussein, North Darfur, started in early September and has affected all age groups including infants, children, and adults. No deaths have been reported so far, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported last week.

About half (193) of all cases have been reported in the El Hariga village, where the outbreak started, and the remainder are from eight neighbouring villages. Whooping cough is a highly contagious bacterial disease of the respiratory tract that occurs mainly in infants and young children.

Eight other news highlights:

Sudan Dialogue: Calls for dissolution of paramilitaries

November 10 – 2015 KHARTOUM Members of the Governance and Outcomes Committee in Sudan’s ongoing National Dialogue have demanded the dissolution of all militias supported by the government, including the Rapid Support…

Opposition leaders barred from leaving Sudan

November 8 – 2015 KHARTOUM Agents of the National intelligence and Security Service (NISS) prevented three opposition leaders from travelling to France today. Mohamed Mukhtar El Khateeb, secretary-general of the Communist…

Grazing damages crops in El Salam, South Darfur

November 8 – 2015 EL SALAM Armed herders drove their livestock onto farmlands in El Salam locality in South Darfur last week. “Vast tracts of cultivated land were damaged and large quantities of crops destroyed,” a farmer…

Militiamen rape five women in South Darfur

November 6 – 2015 GIREIDA Five displaced young women were raped for hours near Gireida in South Darfur on Thursday. Two of the victims are currently in the hospital in a critical condition. The women, aged 20 tot 25 years…

Army, militia raid villages in Darfur's East Jebel Marra

November 5 – 2015 EAST JEBEL MARRA Two young women were gang-raped and four people were seriously injured in an attack by a joint force of Sudanese army troops, paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and…

Kidnappers' accomplice detained in North Darfur

November 5 – 2015 SARAF UMRA Military Intelligence officers detained a senior militia leader in Saraf Umra, North Darfur, on Monday. He is suspected to be involved in the abduction of an Ukrainian pilot and his interpretor in Um Tajok…

21 killed, injured in South Darfur missile attack

November 4 – 2015 DERIBAT In a missile attack on the military garrison of Deribat in East Jebel Marra, South Darfur, this (Wednesday) morning, nine people were killed and 12 others were injured. Multiple sources…

Ministry of Agriculture to ban GM cotton in central Sudan

November 4 – 2015 WAD MADANI The Sudanese Ministry of Agriculture's acknowledgement of the failure of genetically modified cotton is a late attempt to contain the farmers’ anger about the government's disastrous…

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