Sudan police shoot suspect dead in River Nile state

Police officers shot a suspect dead in Atbara, River Nile state, yesterday. Five were wounded, including a policeman who was stabbed. In Darfur, a policeman was killed, a man was kidnapped, displaced people were attacked, and a young girl was raped.

Speaking to Radio Dabanga from Atbara, witnesses reported that police officers raided a house in El Wehda neighbourhood in the town, in search of a suspect known by the name of Jamal Abdu. This led to verbal altercations between the officers and the suspect. A member of the force fired three shots in the house and the suspect died instantly.

A confrontation between angry neighbourhood residents and the police officers resulted in the injury of three people, including a woman. Residents of the neighbourhood then took part in a demonstration in the centre of Atbara, where they attempted to torch police vehicles and the police station. As a result of the violent events, Atbara Hospital, the market, government offices and banks were closed. The sources could not say how many people were wounded.

The Atbara police press office said in a statement that a police force has arrested three people. According to the statement, relatives of suspect Jamal Abdu and people from the neighbourhood gathered when the police officers entered Abdu’s house, attempting to prevent his arrest.

One of the three persons arrested stabbed police assistant Ali Okasha in the stomach with a knife, and wounded other members of the force. The officers then fired shots, which led to the death of the suspect and the wounding of four people.

“This angered the family and neighbours. They destroyed the police car and another vehicle. Another group went to the police headquarters downtown to burn it down”, the police statement said.

North Darfur

In North Darfur, a policeman was killed, two displaced persons were wounded, and a young man was kidnapped in three separate incidents.

A civil society activist told Radio Dabanga that during a dispute, an army lieutenant colonel shot police corporal Mohamed Ibrahim and ran over him with a Land Cruiser in the area of Abazrag, north of Kabkabiya, on Saturday.

She said that in another incident on Saturday, gunmen intercepted a young man from Kabkabiya, driving a vehicle from Kabkabiya to El Tina. He had SDG 3 million with him. The gunmen took him to an unknown destination. His relatives reported the incident to the Kabkabiya police.

In a third incident three armed men attacked displaced people who were collecting firewood in the area of ​​Uri, north of Kabkabiya. They seriously wounded Halima Khalil and Abdallah Daoud, who had to be taken to the hospital for treatment.

South Darfur

In Deribat in ​​East Jebel locality, a 9-year-old girl was raped by a member of the South Darfur Military Intelligence.

The director of the Violence Against Women Unit in South Darfur, Selma John, said that the rapist has been arrested by Military Intelligence. The child has been transferred to Nyala in serious conditions to receive medical and psychological care.

She said that the Family and Child Prosecution filed a report and conducted investigations together with the child's family and witnesses. She demanded, in a statement, that the authorities “impose the most severe penalty on the perpetrator, so that it will be a lesson for others”.

* USD 1 = SDG 55.1375 at the time of posting, according to the daily middle US Dollar rate quoted by the CBoS. Effective foreign exchange rates however can vary widely on Sudan’s parallel market, where the rate of the greenback sold has risen again, to SDG 266 this early morning.

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