Sudanese soldier defects and joins JEM

A lieutenant with the Sudanese army posted in Zam Zam camp, near El Fasher has left the army and joined the Justice and Equality Movement. The ex-lieutenant Ibrahim Yusuf from Wad Dafah village, Managil locality in El Jezira state told Radio Dabanga that the main reasons for his rebellion was ‘rejection of injustice, marginalization and oppression practiced by the regime against the Sudanese people in the name of the armed forces’. He said that operations he was involved in as lieutenant no. 16,983 of battalion 51, continued to haunt him and caused his leaving from the Sudanese army. In 2007, the officer’s battalion was instructed to burn down the town of Haskanita in East Darfur. Remembering the scene, the ex-officer said that inside one of the burning houses was a blind elderly woman trying to escape. Instead of helping her a fellow officer pushed her back into the burning house. Yusuf and another soldier were shocked at the inhumane behavior of the other soldiers. Radio Dabanga tried to reach a spokesperson of the Sudanese army but was not successful.