Appendix: Khartoum’s Suspension of Activities by the ICRC (see primary report at: http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article49817 • International news focus on South Sudan ensures the growing invisibility of other marginalized regions, particularly Darfur
APPPENDIX: Recent reports from Darfur
§§§ Violence targeting or affecting displaced persons and other noncombatants (including cases of likely arson):
• Arrival of militia terrifies North Darfur’s Kabkabiya
KABKABIYA (30 January 2014) – The population of Kabkabiya in North Darfur are living in fear since five days because of the arrival of a large group of militiamen in the area. At the vegetable market… FULL STORY
• 2 policemen killed by border guards in North Darfur capital
EL FASHER (31 January 2014) – Two policemen were killed in violent clashes that broke out with border guards in El Fasher city, North Darfur, on Thursday. Witnesses told Radio Dabanga that the clashes broke… FULL STORY
• Man killed by Abu Tira bullets in Central Darfur’s Um Dukhun
UM DUKHUN (30 January 2014) – A man was killed inside his home by stray bullets in Um Dukhun, Central Darfur, on Wednesday. A neighbour of the deceased reported to Radio Dabanga that troops of the Central… FULL STORY
• Three injured in South Darfur village raid
GIREIDA (27 January 2014) – Three men were seriously injured in Um Kurfa, south of Gireida, South Darfur on Saturday, when militiamen raided the village. One of the villagers reported to Radio Dabanga that… FULL STORY
• Lorry pillaged, booty for sale at Kabkabiya market in North Darfur
KABKABIYA (27 January 2014) – Militiamen robbed the passengers of a lorry loaded with goods, on the Kutum-Kabkabiya road in North Darfur on Sunday. Not much later, the goods were for sale on the Kabkabiya… FULL STORY
• Two boys killed, two more missing in South Darfur
GIREIDA (26 January 2014) – Two displaced minors were killed on Saturday when gunmen attacked a group of youngsters collecting straw in Gireida locality, South Darfur. Two other minors are missing. A… FULL STORY
• Infernos destroy 222 houses in Central and West Darfur
GARSILA / HABILA (26 January 2014) – On Friday a large fire broke out in the village of Dur, north of Garsila, in Central Darfur, wounding several people and destroying more than 200 houses. Another fire, also on… FULL STORY
• Man murdered for motorcycle in Central Darfur
BINDISI (26 January 2014) – Adam Toul was shot dead and robbed of his motorcycle west of Bindisi in Central Darfur on Thursday morning. One of the relatives of the deceased told Radio Dabanga that… FULL STORY
• Gunmen “in Abu Tira uniforms” terrify displaced in South Darfur
NYALA (23 January 2014) – Residents of the Dereig camp for the displaced in Nyala, South Darfur, hid under their beds because of continuous firing in the air by militiamen on Tuesday. A resident told Radio… FULL STORY
• Gunmen kill two, wound six in S. Darfur; farmer slain, another injured in Central Darfur
NYALA / GARSILA (23 January 2014) – On Monday two residents of Kalma camp for the displaced were shot dead and six others injured in an attack by armed herdsmen in Wadi Taisha, east of Nyala, South Darfur. On… FULL STORY
• Gunmen kill two, wound six in South Darfur; farmer slain, another injured in Central Darfur
NYALA / GARSILA (23 January 2014) – On Monday two residents of Kalma camp for the displaced were shot dead and six others injured in an attack by armed herdsmen in Wadi Taisha, east of Nyala, South Darfur. On… FULL STORY
• South Darfur man slain for his mobile phone
KASS (22 January 2014) – On Monday a displaced man was murdered by two militiamen in the toms of Kass in South Darfur. The coordinator of the Kass camps for the displaced told Radio Dabanga that two… FULL STORY
• Shops destroyed in Zamzam camp market fire, North Darfur
ZAMZAM (20 January 2014) – On Sunday a fire that broke out at the market of the Zamzam camp for the displaced near El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, burned eight shops and 20 shelters. One of the… FULL STORY
• Sudan-Chad forces create panic; water pump stolen in North Darfur’s Kabkabiya
KABKABIYA (19 January 2014) – The citizens of Kabkabiya locality in North Darfur are living in a state of severe panic and fear of the joint Sudanese-Chadian forces roaming the area since Friday. On Saturday … FULL STORY
• 52 villagers robbed in Tawila, North Darfur
TAWILA (19 January 2014) – On Saturday militiamen stole 40 sheep, a number of donkeys, and more than SDG20,000 in Tawila, North Darfur, in two separate incidents. Speaking to Radio Dabanga, listeners from… FULL STORY
• Central Darfuri herdsmen extort thousands from farmers
ZALINGEI (19 January 2014) – A gunman threatened to kill a farmer on Sunday in Zalingei locality, Central Darfur, unless he paid SDG13,000 as compensation for injuries sustained by the gunmen’s son. Another… FULL STORY
• Displaced of Murnei camp in West Darfur arrested
MURNEI (17 January 2014) – The residents of the Murnei camp for the displaced in Kereinik locality, West Darfur, have witnessed arrests and harassments by security forces and militiamen within the past two… FULL STORY
• Army troops’ abuses continue in Darfur’s El Salam camp
NYALA (17 January 2014) – Army troops have beaten and looted a shop owner in camp El Salam near Nyala, capital of South Darfur. Internally displaced people living in the camp have complained of this and… FULL STORY
• Two killed in Abu Karinka convoy robbery, East Darfur
ABU KARINKA (17 January 2014) – Two people were killed and four trucks were looted in Abu Karinka locality, East Darfur, on Wednesday. The armed robbery targeted a commercial convoy consisting of ten trucks… FULL STORY
• “Border guards named as Kabkabiya killers” in North Darfur
KABKABIYA (16 January 2014) – Witnesses to the murder and burning of a displaced man in Kabkabiya town, North Darfur, on Sunday have named two militia members, including an officer in the border guards, who… FULL STORY
• Two dead as “Abu Tira” attack displaced group in South Darfur
NYALA (16 January 2014) – Militiamen in uniforms killed two displaced men near Kalma camp in Nyala locality, South Darfur on Wednesday, and wounded six others. Seven displaced people are still missing… FULL STORY
• Three injured in Darfur road robbery
BIRKAT SEIRA (16 January 2014) – Three men have been seriously injured in an attack by militiamen on the road leading from Birkat Seira in Saraf Omra locality, North Darfur, on Wednesday evening. One of the… FULL STORY
• Complaints over herdsmen’s attacks in Central Darfur
ZALINGEI (16 January 2014) – The citizens of the villages in Nierteti and Zalingei localities in Central Darfur have complained of the continuing attacks by armed herdsmen on farms, along with the large-scale… FULL STORY
• North Darfuris live in fear after market attack
KABKABIYA (15 January 2014) – The market in Kabkabiya in North Darfur was closed for the second day in a row on Tuesday after gunmen assassinated displaced person Ismail Adam Sul last weekend. Witnesses told… FULL STORY
• Abu Tira abduct Chadian refugees in Central Darfur
AZUM (15 January 2014) – Militiamen “backed by the government” abducted two Chadian refugees from the Um Shalaya refugee camp in Azum locality, Central Darfur on Monday evening, reportedly to “blackmail”… FULL STORY
• Man murdered for livestock in Central Darfur
ZALINGEI (15 January 2014) – Militia members shot a man in the area of Abata town, north of Zalingei in Central Darfur on Monday. A relative of the deceased told Radio Dabanga that “pro-government militia… FULL STORY
• Violence in South Darfur camp continues after army-militia clash
NYALA (14 January 2014) – A number of people in the El Salam camp for the displaced in South Darfur were injured in an attack by elements of the Sudanese army on Tuesday afternoon. Sheikh of the camp in… FULL STORY
• Gunmen shoot two, scare camp residents in North Darfur
KUTUM (14 January 2014) – Two members of a militia killed two men in Kassab camp for the displaced in Kutum locality, North Darfur on Monday evening. An activist in Kassab camp told Radio Dabanga that two… FULL STORY
• Central Darfur market still closed after Misseriya-Khazam clashes
DELEIG (12 January 2014) – The weekly market of Deleig locality in Central Darfur is still closed. Residents of Deleig town told Radio Dabanga that on Saturday the authorities announced that the weekly… FULL STORY
• Shop and house plundered, woman shot in Central Darfur
NIERTETI (12 January 2014) – A shop owner was assaulted and a woman seriously injured on Saturday in Gurnei village, Nierteti locality in Central Darfur, after being shot by militiamen. A customer… FULL STORY
• Two killed, four wounded by militiamen in South Darfur
GEREIDA (12 January 2014) – In Gereida locality, South Darfur, two people were killed and four others were wounded by militiamen in two separate incidents on Saturday. Speaking to Radio Dabanga, sources said… FULL STORY
• Armed robbers murder man, injure his mother in South Darfur
NYALA (12 January 2014) – A young man was shot dead and his mother seriously wounded by militiamen on Saturday, in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur. In Gereida a relative of the deceased told Radio… FULL STORY
• Sudan Tribune: South Darfur: 5 killed, 7 injured in attack on IDPs camp
January 11, 2014 (KHARTOUM) – An unidentified armed group has attacked Al-Salam camp, which is located 8 kilometers south of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, killing 5 people including 3 police officers and injuring 7 other Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)….
§§§ Longer-term threats: brief editorial commentary accompanies these stories, often significant in ways not immediately obvious:
• 2 policemen killed by border guards in North Darfur capital
EL FASHER (31 January 2014) – Two policemen were killed in violent clashes that broke out with border guards in El Fasher city, North Darfur, on Thursday. Witnesses told Radio Dabanga that the clashes broke… FULL STORY
The fact that police are now often the targets of militia groups has dramatically increased security risks for Darfuris and humanitarians; police are often unsympathetic to complaints of displaced, at least in part because they have been so intimidated by Khartoum’s proxy forces and by militias operating independently. There is simply no reliable source of security in Darfur—certainly not UNAMID.
• South Darfur’s striking doctors demand Health Ministry to respond
NYALA (31 January 2014) – The doctors of Nyala Teaching Hospital have asked the Ministry of Health to respond to their demands of more protection and an improved working environment, so they can lift up… FULL STORY
Medical staff are often abused, experience coercion, suffer extortion, and work in dreadful conditions, often without adequate supplies. This is taking a tremendous toll on the overall health and medical systems of Darfur, and its effects will be felt for many years to come, whatever the military results of continued fighting.
• “Khartoum does not want peace”: public opinion Darfur
EL FASHER (31 January 2014) – Internally displaced people in Darfur and the Sudanese opposition movements have continued their critiques of President Omar Al Bashir’s national address on Monday. They were ” … FULL STORY
The reason so few Darfuris and civil society representatives have accepted the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur is that they see it as an extension of Khartoum’s manipulation of the peace process, excluding the most representative voices and trying aggressively to separate peace in Darfur from the broader context of rebellion and deep unhappiness, indeed hatred of the regime that is to be found everywhere in the peripheral areas—and in areas not so peripheral.
• New Chadian settlers in Darfur
GARSILA / KASS (27 January 2014) – New settlers from Chad arrived at Wadi Salih locality in Central Darfur on Saturday. They occupied abandoned villages in the area. Displaced villagers in Garsila told Radio… FULL STORY
The continued influx of non-Darfuri Arab groups, especially from Chad, is creating long-term tensions over land tenure issues. These were already intense in the wake of Arab Darfuris occupying the farmlands of displaced persons from African tribal groups earlier in the genocide; the growing settlement of Chadian Arabs, with Khartoum’s encouragement and support, promises to “change the demography of Darfur,” “emptying it of Africans”—the expressed commitment of Musa Hilal, the most notorious of the Janjaweed leaders, in an August 2004 directive from his headquarters in North Darfur.
• Six dead as Ma’alia, Rizeigat clash over sheep in East Darfur
ADILA (27 January 2014) – Six people were killed and at least two others wounded in the area of Khamsat in Adila locality, East Darfur in a violent clash between a group of Ma’alia and Rizeigat tribesmen… FULL STORY
Only the Small Arms Survey has offered adequate accounts of intra-Arab fighting, but this fighting has for a number of years been central in the broader violence within Darfur. Khartoum has no more African land with which to pay its militia forces, and has no money for regular salaries. This has led to increasing competition between Arab tribal groups, sometimes resulting in extremely destructive violence. Given the shortage of arable and pasturable land in Darfur, this form of inter-communal violence is a ghastly harbinger of what will define Darfur for the foreseeable future.
• Central Darfur market still closed after Misseriya-Khazam clashes
DELEIG (12 January 2014) – The weekly market of Deleig locality in Central Darfur is still closed. Residents of Deleig town told Radio Dabanga that on Saturday the authorities announced that the weekly… FULL STORY
Markets, which are at the very center of the predominantly agricultural economy of Darfur, have been seriously disrupted or collapsed altogether under the continual threat of assaults by militia forces. This is true even for markets in larger towns, where UNAMID should have a presence. This denies both Arab and African tribal groups a way to exchange goods and obtains various necessities. It will take a long time for some of the well-established and traditional market places to re-open fully—and the process will begin only after security has been established.
• UNAMID head determined for Darfur’s non-signatories to join Doha peace
KHARTOUM (26 January 2014) – Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the head of UNAMID, said he is determined to persuade all Darfur armed movements to engage in peace negotiations. The rebel movements, however, insist on a… FULL STORY
The refusal to recognize that the “Doha process” is moribund and beyond resuscitation ensures that Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the head of UNAMID, will have no role in serious efforts to bring peace to Darfur or Sudan. Since he appears an intelligent man, the likelihood is that he understands perfectly well that the “Doha process” is a dead-end, but has been given no further diplomatic leeway to engage in more productive talks. Khartoum for its part insists that the “Doha process” is the only one in which it will participate—precisely because it has no chance of meaningful success.
• Sudan: Regional Authority “Manipulates” – North Darfur Camp Leaders
El Fasher (January 24, 2014) – The leaders of the North Darfur camps for the displaced people have expressed harsh criticism against the Darfur Regional Authority (DRA) for “not carrying out any of the commitments they made for the displaced,” during a meeting with the head of the DRA in El Fasher on Wednesday. A number of leaders of Abu Shouk, Kassab, Fatta Barno, El Salam and Tawila camps … FULL STORY
Darfuris have grown steadily more suspicious of el-Tigani Seisi, the chief administrator of the Darfur Regional Authority (DRA). He appears to have been fully co-opted by Khartoum, perhaps believing he can make a deal with the devil and somehow halt the violence. Events have proved him deeply in error on this score, and increasingly he appears expedient rather than truly committed to the idea that the Doha process can succeed, or that the DRA is anything more than an extension of Khartoum’s bureaucracy.
• “UNAMID will continue to protect the civilians of Darfur”: Ibn Chambas
KHARTOUM (23 January 2014) – The Joint Special Representative of the African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), Mohamed Ibn Chambas, held a press conference on Thursday in which he briefed the… FULL STORY
This is a shameful lie, as countless reports make clear. UNAMID is a failure; protection of civilians and humanitarians—its core mandate—is minimal at best, and mainly non-existent, as recent developments in Kabkabiya and Kutum make clear. The shameful refusal to protect civilians, even when UNAMID has received credible reports of ethnic slaughter in progress, goes back years (see “What We Learn of UNAMID from the September 2010 Tabarat Massacre“).
• ‘Government sells out Darfur areas to tribes and foreigners’
ZALINGEI (24 January 2014) – The conflict in the Darfur region has turned into a struggle between displaced people, tribes and foreign settlers over land, according to the coordinator of camps for the… FULL STORY
Again, what were already exceedingly difficult land tenure issues before the war in Darfur, and which have become much greater with Arab seizure of African farmland, will become irresolvable if non-Darfuris are allowed to settle on arable or pasturable land.
• Military service personnel in South Darfur unpaid for five months
NYALA (22 January 2014) – Personnel doing their compulsory military service in the Ministries of Health and Education in South Darfur have not received salaries for five months. The director of the…FULL STORY
One reason for the dramatic increased in banditry and opportunistic violence in recent years is that militia forces that were easily paid with land and booty seized early in the war are now without “compensation” of any sort. They have no salaries, there is no more land to seize, and they have become accustomed to a life of profitable violence. It will take many years to deal with this blight on Darfur.
• Criticizing South Darfur camp leaders arrested
GIREIDA (17 January 2014) – Security forces arrested eight sheikhs of two camps in Gireida locality, South Darfur, on Sunday, because they rejected an order stating that each household in Gireida has to… FULL STORY
Khartoum has no intention of allowing any meaningful political space to be opened in Darfur; this is one reason the regime worked so hard to keep representative civil society out of the Doha process.
• Displaced of Murnei camp in West Darfur arrested
MURNEI (17 January 2014) – The residents of the Murnei camp for the displaced in Kereinik locality, West Darfur, have witnessed arrests and harassments by security forces and militiamen within the past two… FULL STORY
IDP camps no longer enjoy any protection from violence, extortion, kidnapping, and a range of other crimes. Again, UNAMID is doing virtually nothing for places like the Murnei area camps.
• Central Darfur traders denounce “fees for military campaigns“
ZALINGEI (17 January 2014) – The traders of Central Darfur have denounced the new fees imposed by the Sudanese government in support of its military campaigns, according to an opposition movement. “The new… FULL STORY
It could hardly be more perverse: Darfuris being compelled to support financially the very war that is being prosecuted against them. This imposition of “fees” also reflects the truly desperate economic situation in Sudan, which faces exploding inflation, an almost total lack of Forex, unserviceable debt, a collapsing agricultural sector, high unemployment and under-employment, and growing bitterness at the regime’s conspicuous and gross self-enrichment.
• SAF limits movement in South Darfur camp after army-militia clashes
NYALA (16 January 2014) – The leaders of the Sudanese army stationed at Jebel Kishlingo, 1.5km south of the El Salam camp for the displaced in Nyala, South Darfur, ordered the residents not to move in and… FULL STORY
People in Darfur essentially live under martial law.
• ‘Food prices, scarcity of petrol still rising’: South Kordofan citizens
KADUGLI (15 January 2014) – Citizens of Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan complain of higher prices for consumer goods, food, and of fuel shortages. Listeners reported to Radio Dabanga that sorghum rose… FULL STORY
One of the most significant—and under-reported—developments in Sudan is the increasingly rapid collapse of the economy. The most obvious hallmark of this collapse is inflation, which continues to soar. Though officially reported as about 50 percent, 70 percent would be a more likely figure, especially for the items that are most needed for poorer Sudanese, including food.
Eric Reeves
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
413-585-3326
ereeves@smith.edu
Eric Reeves’ new book-length study of greater Sudan (Compromising With Evil: An archival history of greater Sudan, 2007 – 2012; www.CompromisingWithEvil.org)
Review commentary at: http://wp.me/p45rOG-15S)
Website: www.sudanreeves.org