A Compendium of Recent Brief Commentaries/News Dispatches on Violence, Security Threats in Darfur, July 25, 2018 – August 11, 2018 (Number 3)
Eric Reeves | https://wp.me/p45rOG-2h7
(see also @SudanReeves on Twitter and previous Compendia: June 16 – June 30, 2018 | (https://wp.me/p45rOG-2fQ/) and July 1 – July 24, 2018 | ( https://wp.me/p45rOG-2gj/)
August 14, 2018
Vicious assaults on non-Arab/African farmers continue to occur throughout Darfur—by Khartoum’s Arab militias and various armed Arab groups—and come at a critical time in the agricultural season, increasing the threat of massive and extreme malnutrition throughout the region. A gutted and completely enfeebled UNAMID provides no protection, or even minimal reporting. The fall harvest may be catastrophically bad. Other consequences of ongoing genocidal violence continue to be reported by Radio Dabanga and Sudan Tribune. Politically, the NIF/NCP regime is committed to the same policies and brutal violence that have defined it over the past 29 years of savagely tyrannical rule:
August 13, 2018:
Bashir to be “tyrant for life in Sudan U.S. Sudan policy is still: “We [the Obama administration] do not want to see the ouster of the [Khartoum] regime, nor regime change. We want to see the regime carrying out reform via constitutional democratic measures.” (Princeton Lyman)
August 11, 2018
“Tales of slavery and torture for Darfuri refugees in Chad who have nowhere to go,” Radio France International | https://en.rfi.fr/africa/20180721-Tales-slavery-torture-Darfuri-refugees-chad-who-have-nowhere-to-go … This is extraordinary journalism about the world’s most forgotten people–their plight is an international disgrace
August 9, 2018:
As UNAMID prepares for further evisceration, contracting to only Jebel Marra region of Darfur, violence continues at intolerable levels. Recent reports from Radio Dabanga give a clear sense of the character of brutal violence against non-Arab/African Darfuris, primarily farmers:
Two farmers killed at voluntary return village in Central Darfur | Sudan Tribune | August 6, 2018 (ZALINGEI)
Two farmers have been killed and one seriously injured on Sunday in an attack by unknown gunmen against Kambo Di village for voluntary return, 5 kilometres west of Zalingei the capital of Central Darfur State. In a statement seen by Sudan Tribune, IDPs and Refugees Committee in Central Darfur said 6 gunmen at 2:00 am (local time) on Sunday opened fire at Kambo Di residents killing two and injuring one.
[The ongoing refusal my UNAMID to recognize the failures of “voluntary returns”—both its UN and African Union leadership—gives Khartoum the green light to proceed with what are in many cases clearly forcible returns. The means of forcing returns available to the regime are many and only increase as UNAMID continues its precipitous drawdown and contraction to the Jebel Marra area only—ER]
Meanwhile, hundreds of IDPs have attended the funeral at Hasahesa camp graveyard amid widespread condemnation of the incident. Several villages of voluntary return have been attacked by gunmen who refuse to allow farmers return to their original areas and use their farmland. Last June, 8 people were killed and 7 others injured seriously by unidentified gunmen at Higair Tunu village for voluntary return, 29 kilometres south-east of South Darfur capital, Nyala.
Since the signing of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur in July 2011, the government constructed several villages and vowed to support IDPs who return to their home areas. However, the displaced complain that the security situation remains the same pointing to the government militia saying they continue to attack them and grab their land.
August 5, 2018:
Unexploded ordnance (UXO) is littered across Darfur after 15 years of genocidal violence, posing a grave and ongoing threat to civilians, esp. children. UNAMID has failed yet again in addressing this threat, often because of inability to secure access from the Khartoum regime:
July 29, 2018:
Darfur: For 15 years we have regularly received reports of Arab militia forces, often working in concert with Sudan Armed Forces, attacking non-Arab/African farming villages. These continuing genocidal attacks are a shame beyond reckoning, esp. as the UN is withdrawing UNAMID:
July 26, 2018:
900 new IDPs arrive in Central Darfur’s Golo in July | Sudan Tribune | July 26, 2018 (KHARTOUM)
The central Darfur authorities and local leaders of internally displaced persons (IDPs) are discussing the relocation of 900 people who fled their homes in East Jebel Marra locality. The Sudanese government forces sporadically clash with the fighters of the Sudan Liberation Movement-Abdel Wahid (SLM/AW) in different areas in Jebel Marra, as a result, hundreds of villagers continue to move in the mountainous area fleeing their homes.
In its bimonthly bulletin, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that about 900 IDPs arrived in early July to Golo where the peacekeeping mission is establishing its headquarters. The state authorities hosted them in the Golo primary school, but it is overcrowded and without sanitation facilities. Also, the school is expected to open in October.
“Finding alternative accommodation for the IDPs is of the utmost importance,” OCHA said adding that Local authorities and IDP leaders are currently negotiating their relocation to another area. The UN peacekeepers truck water to the school. Also, the latrines at the school are insufficient but the problem of hygiene cannot be resolved quickly because the construction of new latrines is pending the relocation of the IDPs. “If this is not addressed soon, sanitation will further deteriorate, potentially increasing the likelihood of disease outbreaks given the start of the rainy season,” said the humanitarian bulletin.
ACUTE MALNUTRITION
Among the new IDPs, seven cases of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and 20 cases of moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) were reported as of 11 July. All the cases were referred to treatment in Golo hospital. “However, the hospital has reported a gap in ready-to-use-supplementary foods (RUSD) due to a disruption in the supply pipeline last month,” said OCHA. For its part, the WFP distributed one-month food rations for the displaced persons.
[Malnutrition rates are increasing throughout Darfur—and this at the height of the rainy season, which makes humanitarian deliveries impossible in many areas, even as humanitarian organizations are denied access to many other areas—ER]
July 25, 2018:
In place of indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilian, Khartoum’s armed forces in Darfur have simply switched to indiscriminate artillery shelling of civilians. A gutted UNAMID rarely investigated bombings and never investigates these war crimes—something Khartoum knows perfectly well:
Earlier Violence in Sudan Still Makes News:
July 30, 2018:
Abyei and Darfur have both been abandoned to the tyranny of rule by Khartoum regime. The world—especially the U.S.—shamefully acquiesced as Abyei was militarily seized my Khartoum in May 2011, denying the indigenous Ngok Dinka their self-determination referendum—de facto annexation:
UN field support official visits Abyei to prepare UNISFA’s mandate review | Sudan Tribune | July 29, 2018 (KHARTOUM)
Ongoing: Grass-Roots Tweet by Sudanese disapora:
Please oppose the impending appointment of Mohammed Atta as the Charge de’ Affaires for the Sudan Embassy. #AttaCriminalNotDiplomat @StateDept @SecPompeo @nikkihaley @amnesty @amnestyusa @UN @EnoughProject @mike_pence @VP @WHNSC @CIA @WhiteHouse @sudanreeves
Atta has a brutal history of violence and torture; that he should be accepted as Khartoum’s senior diplomat in Washington, DC is a disgrace. The Tweet above has been re-Tweeted hundreds of times within the diaspora.