Ten women injured in South Darfur armed assault

Ten women of the Abdoze camp for the displaced in Gireida, South Darfur, were seriously injured on Sunday by militiamen. A relative of one of the women reported to Radio Dabanga that the women had left on Sunday morning to collect firewood and straw in the area of Abu Hamra and Moshrou, northwest of the camp. At about 11am, government-backed militiamen in military uniforms, on camels and horses, assaulted the women with the aim to rape them. When the women resisted, the gunmen tortured them, beating and whipping them alternately for eight continuous hours. All ten women have been transferred to Gireida hospital for treatment, eight of them in a critical condition. Among the victims are Zahr Imam Hamad (35), Fatima Eisa Mohamed Kharif (40), Madina Ibrahim (45), Fatouma Hamad Majdi (55), Sukoun Daoud Mohamed (38), Amuna Bukhari Hamed (40), Zahra Adam Abdallah (38), Aisha Um Abbas (55), Hawa Mohamed Ismail (45) and “the daughter of” Ismail Hamad Idris (17), all of the Abdoze camp, east of Gireida town.In the same area near Gireida, unidentified gunmen have killed one Jordanian and one Senegalese UN peacekeeper in an armed ambush on Sunday, on a convoy of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (Unamid). One of the assailants was killed in return fire by Unamid forces, according to the UN. Unamid stated on Monday that two of the killers have been detained. File photoRelated: Two UN peacekeepers killed in ‘cowardly attack’ on South Darfur convoy (30 December 2013)