More than 10,000 displaced by attacks in Tawila, North Darfur

Government-backed militias attacked the villages in the area between Tawila and Tabit in North Darfur over the weekend. At least 10,000 villagers fled to the Tawila camps for the displaced.

Omda Mukhtar Bosh, coordinator of the Tawila camps reported to Dabanga that about 10,000 newly displaced sought refuge in the Dali and Argo camps near Tawila town. “They came from Siwsiwa, Benjo, Menu, Tayara, Um Arada, Kimo, Um Gafala, and Shalshalei, located at a distance of about 15 km from Tawila.”

“Most of them arrived on Monday. The newcomers told us that a number of the attackers, riding on camels, belonged to the militia, led by Badur Abu Kineish,” Bosh said. “They terrorised the villagers, plundered the houses one by one, and took some 1,700 head of cattle, 500 camels, 200 donkeys, and 100 sheep in total.”

A fleeing resident from a village north of Tabit said that troops of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, supported by local gunmen on camels and horses, began pillaging the villages north of Tabit on Sunday. “This morning they were still searching houses in a number of villages.”  

“The militiamen stole about 700 sheep, cows, and donkeys from the Bobey Sajali village, before they burned it to the ground,” he said.

“The villages raided on Sunday and today are located north of Mount Kolgy,” he explained. “Karkar, Sajali, Siwsiwa, Hillet Mandi, and Hillet Faki Abakar were pillaged, among many other villages, until Donki Shata.”

He added that herders Abdallah Yahya Haroun and Musab Mahjoub Saleh were kidnapped, “which brings the number of abducted herders in the area since the start of the attacks on the first day of this year on 15.”