Protest against ongoing attacks on Tabit, North Darfur

On Tuesday, hundreds of people living in and around Tabit in Tawila locality staged a demonstration in the village in protests against the killing of a man who attempted to prevent the rape of his wife. A resident of Dubbo El Omda was kidnapped on Monday.

On Monday, three militiamen shot Osman Hamid Adam dead as he tried to prevent them from raping his wife at their farm, one of the protesters explained to Radio Dabanga.

In response, residents and displaced people of Tabit took to the streets and gathered in front of the office of the Commissioner of Tawila.

“As the commissioner happened to be in his office, we demanded him personally as well as the North Darfur government to put an end to the ongoing abuses by the militiamen in the locality,” the protester reported.

“We told the Commissioner that from November last year until today at least 180 crimes were reported to the military garrison of Tabit, including murder, rape, robbery, and arson.

“The commissioner replied that he does not have sufficient forces to face what he called the outlaws, and that he would raise our complaints to the Governor of North Darfur,” he said.

From November 2014 to 2015, Radio Dabanga received reports that 181 girls and women in the Darfur region had become the victims of rape. 49 of them were raped in and around Tabit, mostly by militiamen. Only 12 cases of rape were filed by the police in Darfur that year, according to the Minister of Interior Affairs in a report to the national Parliament in October. Sources have informed Radio Dabanga that local police in Darfur often refuse to file reported rape cases, and that in general, many incidents go unreported.

Abducted

On Monday, gunmen captured Zakariya Abdelrahman Idris from Dubbo El Omda in Tawila locality, and took him to an unknown destination.

One of his relatives told Radio Dabanga that Idris went to fetch water from a nearby well that morning, but did not return. “We went to the well where we found his donkey, his shoes, and marks of blood.”

A search party was formed that tracked the blood marks. “We were stopped by a group of gunmen who opened fire at us, and forced us to return to Dubbo El Omda,” the relative said.