South Darfur bandits target vehicle tyres

Two lorries and a Toyota were halted on the road between Um Gounja and Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, in three separate incidents on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, militiamen beat and robbed the passengers of their belongings. On Tuesday, they took the belongings of the passengers of a lorry. Later that day, they stole a number of livestock from a Toyota on the same road. Sheikh Mahjoub Adam Tabaldiya of El Salam camp for the displaced told Radio Dabanga that on Monday morning a group of “government-backed militiamen stationed near the Um Gounja-Salam-Nyala road” caused a passing lorry to have a puncture. When the lorry stopped, the militiamen started to beat the 15 passengers, the driver and his assistant. They told them to lie down on the ground after which they robbed them of all their belongings and purchases. On Tuesday morning, the militiamen stopped a lorry in the same way on the Um Gounja-Nyala road. A woman among the passengers was injured when the vehicle was forced to stop. The robbers took all the property of the passengers. On Tuesday afternoon, again on the same road, gunmen robbed the owner of a Toyota, Hashim Adam Hassan, of the six sheep and a cow he was transporting. File photo