Three men killed in Gireida, South Darfur

Three men were shot dead in two separate incidents in Gireida locality in South Darfur on Thursday. One of the incidents took place in a village for voluntary returnees.

In Idan village, in Gireida locality, Zakariya Angoika was shot dead and Adam Mousa was wounded in an attack by militiamen on Thursday morning.

A listener in the village told Radio Dabanga that about ten militiamen, riding horses, “opened fire on the village. Displaced people had returned from camps in Gireida to go farming the land in the area about a month ago.”

The shooting caused the death of Angoika. The rest of the people fled Idan, the listener said. “We don’t know where three of our people are.”

He added that the attack was reported to the Gireida police. Multiple attacks on farmers or displaced people have taken place in the locality in the past weeks.

Voluntary return is one of the options which the Sudanese government gives to the people in Darfur who have been displaced by the armed conflict that erupted in 2003. Khartoum plans to transform the camps into residential areas, or integrate them into existing towns.

Shooting

Also on Thursday, an attack by gunmen killed Mohamed Ahmed Bangouz and Ali Bashir near Rizeig, 10 km west of Gireida. The gunmen attacked a group of people, wounding eight others.

A witness told Radio Dabanga that all dead and wounded people were coming from a site for displaced people near a base of the UN-AU peacekeeping force (Unamid) and had gone out to track-down stolen goats.

The witness said that the rescue team were attacked by gunmen. Community leader Ahmed Eisa, Sheikheldin Adam, Adam Yagoub, Ajim Abdelrahim, Amer Ibrahim, Haroun Hasan, Adam Asag, and Adam Suleiman were wounded. Two others, Adam Mousa and Yagoub Gamar, went missing.