Several attacks and robberies in North and Central Darfur

Two were killed and 12 were wounded in attacks in Central Darfur this week whilst three displaced people were kidnapped and others were robbed in North Darfur. Especially farmers and displaced people were targeted.

Three people were wounded and a number of houses were burned in an attack by gunmen in ​​Mukjar locality, Central Darfur, yesterday morning.

Radio Dabanga's sources reported that about 150 armed men on horses and motorcycles attacked a neighbourhood in Dambar after a relative of theirs was found dead in the area.

The heavy shooting led to the burning of several houses and the injury of two men and a woman.

Government forces moved from Mukjar town, the locality’s capital, to Dambar yesterday.

Two other people were killed and nine others wounded in an attack by armed herders in Sidir, east of Bindisi in Central Darfur, on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Relatives of the victims told Radio Dabanga that the herders beat farmer Feisal Ali Adam to death inside his farm on Tuesday. A search posse formed by people from the area traced the killers the following day.

When they approached the nomads’ settlement, the attackers fired a barrage of bullets towards them, killing of Mohamed Idris Kindi on the spot and wounding nine others.

Policemen and paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces arrived at the place in conjunction with the search posse but were unable to confront the attackers.

The RSF were able to evacuate the wounded after the arrival of additional forces.

North Darfur violence

On Wednesday evening, an armed group kidnapped three people from the Zamzam camp for the displaced south of El Fasher, capital of North Darfur.

A camp activist told Radio Dabanga that gunmen seized Salem Kabbashi, Daoud Kheirallah, and Suleiman Khater and took them to an unknown destination. He said that a search posse has been formed to find them.

In El Salam camp near Kabkabiya, three homes burned when a large group of gunmen raided the camp and fired heavily around them on Wednesday evening. They plundered two other houses.

Adam Juma told Radio Dabanga that the gunmen stayed for about three hours in the valley on the outskirts of Kabkabiya and continued shooting while the authorities remained silent.

In Saraf Omra, also North Darfur, two young men were injured in an armed robbery on Tuesday.

Two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a rickshaw in the area of Um Hajara. They hit its two passengers and robbed them of their belongings.

Darfur conflict

Darfur has a long history of strife between nomadic Arab herders and non-Arab African herders or sedentary farmers. Arab tribesmen were recruited by the previous regime of dictator Omar Al Bashir to join the Janjaweed militias. Al Bashir employed these Arab militias to repress a revolt over ethnic marginalisation in the region, mainly targeting non-Arab African farmers.

During the war in Darfur, farmers faced atrocious attacks on their villages by the Janjaweed in which their farms were occupied. Millions had to flee and found refuge in camps for the displaced but even these were, and still are, frequently attacked.