♦ This week’s news in brief ♦

A compact weekly digest of Dabanga Sudan’s highlights of the news from Darfur and Sudan

A compact weekly digest of Dabanga Sudan's highlights of the news from Darfur and Sudan

 

Announcement: Watch Radio Dabanga on Al Jazeera

“Radio Dabanga: is Darfur losing its media lifeline?,” Al Jazeera asked in its weekly Listening Post programme on Saturday 1 September. Radio Dabanga Editor-in-Chief Kamal Elsadig and Sudanese journalists and experts discuss the press curbs in the African country. Watch it here!

 

Health committee urges Kassala to declare fever area

September 4 – 2018 KASSALA Health authorities in Kassala have confirmed the spread of viral fevers. The medical director of Kassala hospital, Dr Abdel Jabbar, said that the hospital in the state capital has refrained from receiving any more cases.

Doctors said that the fever in Kassala is Chikungunya, transmitted by mosquitoes of the Egyptian eugenics, for which there is no cure, with the treatment focused on alleviating the symptoms. They claimed the disease is especially dangerous for children, the elderly, diabetics, and heart patients.

Restaurant and cafeteria owners in Kassala have showed their concern about the spread of flies in mosquitoes following the accumulation of waste in the town.

The parliamentary health committee has also confirmed the spread of fevers in Kassala state. One hospital has reportedly received hundreds of cases and recorded numerous deaths. A member of the health committee strongly criticised the state government in a press statement on Monday, and called on it to declare Kassala as a disaster area.

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♦ Pesticides, fuel shortage ruin crops in Sudan's El Gedaref

September 2 – 2018 EL GEDAREF More than 50 farmers in Sudan’s El Gedaref state have filed a criminal complaint for damage to vital crops by aerial pesticide spraying operations. Farmers told Radio Dabanga that large areas planted with sorghum, sesame, and sunflowers in the southern region of El Gedaref state have been damaged by what they called a defective pesticide sprayed from an aircraft. They report that more than 25,000 acres of sesame, sorghum and sunflowers, which had reached the production stage, are affected.

In addition, a number of residents of El Mafaza locality have reported irregularities and corruption in the distribution of the crop market to shops. The distribution process has been conducted secretly, they claimed, without the knowledge of the residents or announcing the quotas in public. A resident said that the quotas have been distributed to influential authorities.

The current agricultural season has been a challenging one for farmers, exacerbated by the chronic shortage of fuel in Sudan. A farmer from El Gedaref state said they had received only about 60 per cent of the diesel allocated for agriculture so far – up slightly from the 50 per cent reported at the beginning of August. And as reported in July, small farmers in the state repeatedly warned for the failure of the cultivation of sesame and millet because of the diesel shortage and high production costs.

 


More news from Radio Dabanga:

Two young women drown in North Darfur camp

September 3 – 2018 KUTUM Two young women have drowned in water left after heavy rains and flash floods in Kutum locality in North Darfur on Friday.
 

Sudan: Two River Nile schools close for lack of teachers

September 2 – 2018 ABU HAMAD The parents’ councils of El Kir School and Jummeiza school in Abu Hamad locality of Sudan’s River Nile state reported that both schools have been closed indefinitely because of the resignation of four out of eight teachers.
 

Three Sudan newspaper print runs seized

September 2 – 2018 KHARTOUM On Friday, the security apparatus confiscated the print runs of El Jareeda, El Tayyar, and El Rai El Aam newspapers from the press without explanation. These confiscations were permanent instead of a temporary delay in distribution.
 

Unknown disease appears in Kabkabiya, North Darfur

August 31 – 2018 KABKABIYA An unknown disease has appeared in Kabkabiya locality in North Darfur, causing paralysis in the legs and hands, spasms, ulceration and skin discoloration.

Sudanese human rights hero Amin Mekki Madani dies

August 31 – 2018 KHARTOUM Dr Amin Mekki Madani, a prominent Sudanese human rights defender and head of the Sudan Civil Society Initiative, passed away today…

North Kordofan doctors under arrest for strike

August 31 – 2018 EL OBEID The strike of doctors in El Obeid Hospital in North Kordofan entered its fourth day yesterday, in protest against an attack by militia members on…
 

Sudan: Last Nile boat tragedy victim found

August 30 – 2018 EL BUHEIRA The body of the last of 23 victims of the tragedy of August 15 in which 22 school children and a woman doctor drowned when the boat they were travelling…
 

Girl of 7 raped, murdered in Sudan’s North Kordofan

August 29 – 2018 EL OBEID The body of a seven-year-old girl has been retrieved from a toilet well in El Obeid, capital of Sudan’s North Kordofan. Coroners say she was raped before being…
 

Two more Sudanese pilgrims die in Mecca

August 29 – 2018 MECCA Hajji Ahmed Abdallah Al Bashir of Tambul area died in Mecca in Saudi Arabia during the performance of the noon prayer. Haja Rajabiya Ismael Abdallah of El…

 

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This digest is an excerpt from the weekly Darfur & Sudan News Update. Subscribe here to receive the newsletter directly in your inbox