’25,000 newly displaced in North Darfur’s Tawila camps’

The number of newly displaced from East Jebel Marra and the areas around Tawila is estimated at 25,000. About 50,000 head of livestock were stolen by government militias. A Sudanese scholar described the paramilitary campaign in the areas as “ethnic cleansing”.

"20,000 people from East Jebel Marra and another 5,000 from the area of Fanga fled the attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on their villages during the past few weeks,” Omda Mukhtar Bosh, the coordinator of the three Tawila camps for the displaced, reported to Dabanga.

“Rwanda camp received about 8,000 newly displaced villagers, Dali camp 7,000, and Argo camp is hosting about 10,000 newly displaced. They have not received any assistance so far,” he explained.

“According to the newly displaced, the militia troops robbed them of approximately 50,000 head of livestock,” Bosh added. “Thousands of 100 kg sacks of sorghum and dry okra were stolen from them. At least ten villages burned to ashes in the area around Tawila alone.”

The camp coordionator described the situation of the newly displaced as “very bad”. “They are trying to survive without food or shelter, in this severe cold wave.”

‘Ethnic cleansing’

Prof Hamid Eltigani Ali, economist, and head of the Department of Public Policy and Administration at the American University in Cairo, called the widespread attacks on villages in East Jebel Marra and in North Darfur “ethnic cleansing, and a systematic impoverishment of the civilians in the areas”.

He urged “all the people in Darfur” not to become accomplices of the militias by buying stolen goods and livestock.