‘Security, services lacking in North Darfur’s El Tina’: commissioner

The situation in El Tina locality is far from conducive to encourage displaced people and refugees from the area to return to their places of origin, according to the locality’s commissioner.

In a press conference in El Tina on Sunday morning, Commissioner Omar Mansour Dosa said that the displaced in the locality are unable to return because of the rampant insecurity on the Sudanese-Chadian border area.

The commissioner pointed to the so-called ‘toll gates’ regularly set up by gangs of gunmen to illegally extort money from cars and lorries transporting passengers and goods from Khartoum. The amount extorted from one vehicle could reach SDG14,000 ($2,300).

He also mentioned a significant rise in arms and drug trafficking during the past decade.

Dosa further stated that the locality needs improved health and education services, and explained that there are eight schools that accommodate 8,750 students this school year.

“Many of them come from eastern Chad after the Chadian authorities threatened to change the Sudanese curriculum to the French one, in order to push the Darfuri refugees there to return to Sudan,” he said.