People killed, injured, abducted, robbed in North Darfur’s Kutum

Militiamen shot dead a man, and cut the ear of another in Kutum in North Darfur on Sunday. On Saturday, two men were abducted from the Kutum Market. A group of militiamen robbed the passengers of a commercial vehicle on the Kutum-El Fasher road. Another group stole goats from displaced in Kutum.

Militiamen driving a Land Cruiser stopped Abdallah Abdelkarim and Adam Saleh in the Sangar district in western Kutum, a relative of the victims told Radio Dabanga.

“They demanded their cell phones and money. When they refused, they shot dead Abdallah. They beat Adam with a rifle, and then cut off one of his ears.”

On Saturday afternoon, Ahmed Omar Ibrahim and Osman Haroun Khater were kidnapped by a group of gunmen. “The gunmen beat the men. and then took them by force of arms to an unknown destination west of the town” a market trader reported.

He added that on the same day, a paramilitary group driving a Land Cruiser intercepted a passenger lorry at the road linking Kutum with El Fasher, capital of North Darfur. “They stopped the lorry at at gun point in the area of Nena, and threatened to shoot the passengers if they would not give them their money, mobile phones, and luggage.” 

In Fata Borno in Kutum locality, 15 goats were stolen. “Three militiamen riding on camels and a donkey, and another one driving a motorcycle ambushed a group of children from the Fata Borno camp for the displaced who were grazing goats not far from the camp,” a camp resident reported to this station.

She said that a search team of camp residents found the stolen animals in the neighbourhood. “The militiamen however threatened to shoot anyone who dared to approach the goats.”

Insecurity

In October last year, the Commissioner of Kutum locality, Adam Awadelkarim Bosh, resigned from his post, reportedly in protest against the security situation and the state government’s inaction to solve it.

Bosh reportedly complained that the Ministries of Justice and the Interior had not provided judicial and policing organs such as a judge, a prosecutor, and a police force for five years.

Forces were sent to the locality later that month to implement measures set by the North Darfur government to curb the rampant insecurity. Three days after their arrival, however, they left again.

“After the government troops left, militiamen immediately began to create havoc. Riding their unnumbered cars and motorcycles they began to make the towns, markets, and villages unsafe again,” a listener reported to Radio Dabanga from Kutum.