Darfur: Deadly fighting continues in east and south Jebel Marra

Fierce fighting is reportedly ongoing across wide areas to the east and south of Darfur’s Jebel Marra, following movement of government forces and militias on rebel-held positions this week.

The fighting has left an unknown number of civilians and combatants dead and wounded, and displaced thousands. On Thursday afternoon, fleeing civilians told Radio Dabanga that Sara Ali Haroun and three of her children Musab, Hassan, and Hussein were killed during the fighting at Sina area southeast of Jebel Marra, which are the last strongholds of the forces of the mainstream Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdelwahid El Nur (SLM-AW).

One of the survivors of the fighting told Radio Dabanga, that yesterday the clashes were renewed north of Sina area which was captured by the government forces from the movement on Wednesday.

He said thousands of families have been displaced from Feina area after government forces and their militias burned all the food stocks in the villages and left the civilians in a very poor humanitarian situation.

He appealed to humanitarian and human rights organisations to urgently intervene to save thousands of fleeing civilians and provide food and urgent protection to them.

SLM-AW: ‘Great losses in [Govt.] lives and equipment’

The SLM-AW claims that its forces “managed to respond to the government attack on Jebel Marra causing them great losses in lives and equipment”.

In a statement, the movement’s spokesman said that the SLM-AW forced the government forces to retreat, leaving their dead and vehicles in the battlefields.

“The bravery of the movement's forces has thwarted all the regime's claims through its misguided propaganda machine, which claims to have controlled Jebel Marra and the liberated land and the repeating lies of the regime leaders about the end of the armed movements.”