Radio Dabanga ‘top station’ in Darfur and Kordofan

The Sudanese national parliament on Monday discussed the latest report of its Information and Media Committee. The report stated that the majority of the people in the Darfur and Kordofan states prefer Radio Dabanga to any national broadcasting station. “Radio Dabanga has become the main source for information and news in Sudan,” said Abdallah Jamaa, MP for Ed Daein constituency (East Darfur) during the parliamentarian session on the media. “What the citizens are witnessing on the ground, they hear reflected on Radio Dabanga. That is why Radio Dabanga is much more popular than the government-sponsored radio, which has been working for 25 years without any effect.” The MP noted that the people in East Darfur all listen to Radio Dabanga, “while Radio Omdurman cannot be received in the state”. He therefore proposed to the parliament to cut the financial support of national radio stations. “Not even a penny.”    MP Abdallah Ali Masar, former Media Minister, and currently chairman of the Transport Committee, commented by saying that his wife listens to Radio Dabanga “day and night”. “Every day, when I come home, I find her listening to Radio Dabanga.” Masar, however, accused Radio Dabanga of broadcasting programmes against the Sudanese government. File photo: A WFP truck driver listens to the radio after waking up in the morning at an Unamid base in North Darfur (Albert Gonzalez Farran/Unamid)