North Darfur rebel groups announce new insurgency

A group of smaller rebel movements that signed the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) have announced a new insurgency.

The rebel fighters, who were not party to the DDPD’s Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) programme, threaten to attack Kabkabiya town in North Darfur.

Ramadan Fideil, one of the rebel leaders, reported to Radio Dabanga that his combatants captured two military intelligence officers in Kabkabiya locality on Tuesday.

Sources in Kabkabiya told Radio Dabanga that army troops began patrolling the town at night. They said that the rebel groups are well-known in the area. “The rebels have been stationed west of Kabkabiya for a long time, and impose all kinds of fees at roadblocks.”

The Commissioner of Kabkabiya, Adam Mohamed Adam, commented that the North Darfur authorities “have taken all the necessary measures and arrangements to impose the rule of law and achieve stability in the region.”

In July 2011, the Sudanese government and the Liberation and Justice Party (NJM) that was formed in 2010 by 19 breakaway factions of the main Darfur rebel movements, signed the DDPD. Two years later, a faction of the Justice and Equality Movement led by the late Mohamed Bashar (JEM-Sudan) signed the Doha agreement. Smaller breakaway factions from the JEM and the Sudan Liberation Movement signed the peace document in the following years.

The DDR programme began late for the ex-combatants of the NJM and JEM-Sudan. They started in August 2014. According to the Commissioner of Kabkabiya, most of the rebels of the smaller factions did not meet the conditions for the DDR programme, and could not join the Sudanese army or the police.