North Darfur to send police, judges to lawless Kutum: source

The North Darfur state plans to send a force of 500 policemen to Kutum to restore law and order to the 'lawless' town, where police withdrew from more than three years ago.

An official source told Radio Dabanga that the decision to send police and a judicial organ to Kutum was made in a recent meeting between Sudan's First Vice-President Lt. Col. Bakri Hassan Saleh, Governor of North Darfur Abdelwahed Yousef Ibrahim, and the Minister of Interior. They concluded that police should return to Kutum “as soon as possible, to restore the prestige of the police before the formation of the state government”, the source disclosed.

Three prosecutors and two judges will accompany the police force, including 250 security police staff. The force will be equipped with “the latest modern equipment”, the source quoted.

He added that possibly, a military commissioner will be appointed for the Kutum locality, so as to decisively and firmly enforce the state’s directives that emerged in the meeting.

For more than three years, policemen, prosecutors, and other members of the judiciary are absent in Kutum locality. The army is supposed to keep order instead. The population is terrorised day and night by gunmen, who beat, rob, and abduct people, in the absence of the police and the judiciary, activists and residents reported to Radio Dabanga in the past.

“Kutum should be treated equally with the rest of Sudan, in rights and in duties.”

A Member of the Sudanese parliament for North Darfur claimed she raised the issue of the security vacuum in Kutum to the Minister of Interior. Nawal Abdelrahman Dagran, representing the women's constituency in the state, told Radio Dabanga that she demanded the presence of policemen and other civil authorities in the locality, which has a population of 55,000 inhabitants.

“I am still awaiting the Interior Minister’s response to the urgent matter,” Dagran said. “We have asked the former North Darfur Governor [Osman Kibir] to fill the security vacuum, but did not find any response.”

Dagran called for treating Kutum equally with the rest of Sudan, in rights and duties. A supporting factor, she stressed, would be the construction of a road between Kutum and El Fasher, to connect it with neighbouring localities.