Umma Party leader barred from visiting West Kordofan

On Saturday, agents of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) allegedly prevented the president of the National Umma Party (NUP) from visiting El Nahud in West Kordofan.

A delegation led by party leader El Sadig El Mahdi intended to visit En Nahud to offer condolences to the victims of the clashes between the Hamar and Kababish tribes last month, Sara Nugdallah, NUP secretary-general and spokeswoman told Radio Dabanga.

“Apart from offering our condolences, the visit comes within the framework of the party's programme to encourage tribal reconciliation and meet with the party's grass-roots in West Kordofan,” she said.

On Saturday, the delegation visited the North Kordofan capital of El Obeid. They intended to travel to En Nahud the next day, where he was invited by Hamar Nazir Abdelgader Mansour. “However the party received a call from the Nazir, who informed us that a West Kordofan official contacted him from the capital El Fula on Saturday, and told him the visit had to be cancelled.”

According to Nugdallah, “The refusal by the executive and security bodies in West Kordofan to allow the visit of the NUP president do not only reveal their failure and inability to properly deal with state issues, but as well shows their own involvement in the tribal conflicts. That is why they do not wish any intervention”.

She holds the West Kordofan government “fully responsible for their polarisation and exclusion policies. They are preventing any sincere effort to heal the wounds, support the social ties, and achieve peaceful coexistence in the state”.

The NUP spokeswoman further told this station that since the return of El Mahdi after an exile of more than two years to Khartoum in January this year, the Sudanese authorities intensified their attempts to halt the party’s public activities, especially in the states.