People killed, hundreds of homes destroyed in North Darfur

An unknown number of residents of the Naivasha camp for the displaced near Shangil Tobaya in Tawila, North Darfur, were killed and injured in attacks by militant herders on Thursday evening. During protests against the recent resurgence of violence in the area, a man and a child were shot dead. In neighbouring Dar El Salam locality, gunmen burned hundreds of houses.

Listeners told Radio Dabanga from Shangil Tobaya that hundreds of people took to the streets in the town on Thursday, to protest against the killing of two displaced farmers by militant herders the day before.

The angry demonstrators took set fire to the Shangil Tobaya police station and barricaded the weekly market. Military forces shot at the demonstrators, killing two people, one of them a minor.

On the same day, a herder was found killed near the Naivasha camp.

In the evening, “a large number of gunmen riding on camels launched a violent retaliatory attack on the camp, and set fire to hundreds of homes” the sources reported. They said that people were killed and injured, but could not provide detailed information about numbers.

Radio Dabanga has tried to contact the governor of North Darfur and the local authorities, but was unable to reach them.

More houses destroyed by fire

In Dar El Salam locality, neighbouring Tawila, “a group of armed men” torched hundreds of houses in Amgeigou village.

Villagers from the area reported that “the people of Amgeigou fled their homes in the past two months because of the continuous attacks by armed men”.

They said that a delegation of villagers requested the North Darfur authorities in a meeting in the North Darfur capital of El Fasher to enable them to return to Amgeigou to collect the property they had to leave when they fled. “The attackers however pre-empted the return of the villagers and burned all the houses including their contents.”

‘Licensed’

According to Sudan researcher and analyst Eric Reeves, the Arab militiamen in North Darfur “see the coup as a license to resume attacks on non-Arab farmers without fear their crimes will be communicated”.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Reeves posted a report on the “widespread ethnic violence” in the region, saying that a new wave of displacement is taking place in Tawila. “Around 2018 families have managed to reach Zamzam camp in the past 48 hours,” . Among them are “many women who suffered horrendous beatings-many with broken arms and elbows, many more who suffered blows to the heads [..]”.