‘Sudan to make Darfur’s Jebel Marra a terrorist base’: rebel leader

The Sudanese government plans to empty the Darfur area of Jebel Marra of its inhabitants, and transform it into a base for terrorist groups from countries such as Egypt, Chad, Mali, and Cameroun, according to a rebel leader.

Abdel Wahid El Nur, leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM-AW), and deputy-chairman of the Sudan Revolutionary Front, told Dabanga that “the dry season offensive in Darfur, launched by the authorities at the end of last year, actually aims at evicting the inhabitants of Jebel Marra”.

 “With continuous aerial bombardments and long-range artillery shelling, the plundering of villages, the theft of livestock, and the torching of farmlands, the government forces make life in the area impossible.”

The SLM-AW issued a statement on Saturday on the subject, claiming that the rebel movement received confidential information about the government plans.

El Nur appealed to members of the various militias to withdraw from “these genocide plans”, and “point their guns towards the government, instead of to their fellow citizens in Darfur”.

On Friday, the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan published its 2014 report, presented to the UN Security council on 12 December last year, in which the experts raise their concerns about alleged Sudanese support to Islamist fighters in Libya.  

The Panel furthermore stated that Darfur could be “potentially fertile ground” for infiltration by radical Islamists, “owing to its porous borders and the cross-border family solidarity between Sudanese tribes and their African 'cousins' of Arab descent in the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali and the Niger".