Day: December 28, 2021

Rescuers are searching through rubble and dozens of miners are feared dead after several shafts collapsed at the Darsaya gold mines in El Nahud locality of Sudan’s West Kordofan on Sunday.

The exact toll of dead and injured is still uncertain. Sources in the West Kordofan state government told Radio Dabanga that they have received reports of 38 deaths, while other sources reported the death of 22 people and the injury of eight others.

The wounded were transferred to the El Nahud Teaching Hospital as searches continue to find missing miners under the rubble.

Artisanal mining

Sudan’s gold production has traditionally largely been driven by unregulated, artisanal (individual subsistence) mining, which is highly hazardous to the miners. The transitional government began to regulate the mining and export of the precious metal two years ago.

The total gold production of Sudan in 2020 reached 36.6 tons, making Sudan the second-largest producer of gold in Africa and the ninth in the world. Gold mines are scattered across Sudan, including Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile. Artisanal mining has also drawn hundreds of thousands of gold seekers to the deserts of Sudan’s northern and eastern states.

Source: Radio Dabanga

Two people were killed and seven others injured in an attack by gunmen on villages in the areas of Kolo and Kerala in Tawila locality in North Darfur on Sunday. Residents of the area reported to Radio Dabanga that the attack was carried out by armed men in 12 vehicles – of which they say four had Rapid Support Forces (RSF) licence plates – 25 motorcycles, and 150 camels.

Hamid Ali Yagoub and Bishara Hari Yaqoub were shot dead. Four men and three women were wounded. The exact causes of the attack are unknown, however reports of violent banditry by armed groups in Darfur reach Radio Dabanga almost daily.

The attack prompted hundreds of residents of the area to flee into the mountains. Activists have appealed to the government authorities and international human rights organisations to intervene urgently.

Sandal Sodour, Chairman of the High Committee for Security Arrangements, is to issue decisions from the Chief Justice and the Attorney General in the coming days to establish special courts and prosecution offices for the joint force in Darfur, in order to play their judicial and judicial role to enhance security and peace throughout the region and to enable displaced people and refugees to return to their villages and areas of origin.

Sodour stressed in comments in El Fasher on Monday that this step will represent a real addition to the government’s efforts aimed at establishing security and stability in Darfur and entering into a new phase of implementing the security arrangements stipulated in the Juba Peace Agreement.

Source: Radio Dabanga

Police in North Darfur say that they have arrested two suspects, after buildings and containers of equipment at the former African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) logistical base north of the capital El Fasher, were looted on Friday and Saturday. The suspects were reportedly held with part of the loot in their possession.

The police have warned the public against dealing in, or transporting the looted goods.

The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned in the strongest terms the attacks and looting of the UNAMID site in El Fasher on Friday.

In a press statement, the ministry indicated that the government of Sudan emphasised the appreciation of the role that UNAMID has played in providing security and stability in Darfur over the past years.

UN Secretary General António Guterres has added his voice to that of the the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations for Sudan (SRSG) and head of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission In Sudan (UNITAMS), Volker Perthes, who voiced “extreme disappointment” over the looting of the UNAMID base. “The equipment stolen was for protection of civilians by Darfur authorities. Protection of civilians should be number one priority for both the state and armed groups involved in the looting,” Perthes said.

Looting

As previously reported by Radio Dabanga, the ongoing insecurity in Darfur, often partly exacerbated by the vacuum created by the UNAMID drawdown, has meant that the practicalities of the handover of UNAMID sites and facilities have not always gone as planned.

On June 5, two people were killed and eight others sustained injuries when a former UNAMID site in Shangil Tobaya, Dar El Salaam locality, south of El Fasher in North Darfur was looted.

The site was handed over to the Government of Sudan on May 25. It was the last of 14 deep field sites handed over to the Sudanese government. At the time, the North Darfur government and the Sudanese government’s joint task force strongly reconfirmed their commitment to ensure civilian use of the former site.

Since the mission ended its mandate at the end of last year, various former UNAMID sites handed over to local authorities to be used as schools or training centres, have been looted. In February, a site in North Darfur’s Saraf Omra that was earmarked for use as a vocational training centre was looted and ‘levelled’ just weeks after it was handed over to the Sudanese government.

Source: Radio Dabanga

Sudanese security forces have embarked on a campaign of detentions in Khartoum, Omdurman, and Khartoum North (Bahri), and raided the homes of members of the resistance committees in the capital and other states since Saturday. The head of the ruling junta, Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, has temporarily given the General Intelligence Service (GIS), successor of the infamous (now disbanded) National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS)*, the authority to arrest civilians during the State of Emergency.

The coordination of the Resistance Committees in Omdurman reported that Abdallah El Nour, a member of the Karari Resistance Committee, was held by a force wearing civilian clothes on Sunday and took him to an unknown destination.

The Resistance Committee of Haj Yousef, a densely populated neighbourhood in Khartoum North, said that three of its members were held at dawn on Monday, and they are Diaeldin Salah, Osama Hashem, and Awad Abdoun.

Emergency lawyers said that the police have taken blood and urine samples from activists detained on December 25, in a move to fabricate accusations for them. The lawyers said that they are in the process of submitting legal process against these illegal measures.

Zeinab El Sadig, a member of the Political Bureau of the National Umma Party (NUP) and daughter of El Sadig El Mahdi, NUP President before he died of COVID-19 in November last year, said that her party has completed a road map regarding the current political crisis, and that she has presented it to a number of allies of the Forces for Freedom and Change and the Sudan Liberation Movement breakaway faction led by Minni Minawi. All political forces will be contacted in this regard.

She explained that one of the most important things mentioned in the proposed document is the development of the Constitutional Document and the definition of a partnership framework with the military, as well as a review of some points in the peace agreement signed in Juba.

In another political development, the establishment of the National Movement Forces was launched in Khartoum on Monday. It will be headed by Dr El Tijani Sese, former chairperson of the Darfur Regional Authority, which was dissolved in 2016.

This new alliance includes political forces, native administration leaders and Sufi leaders, and works in coordination with the Forces of Freedom and Change-the National Charter Group. Among the goals of the new alliance, as announced, is stopping foreign interference, and conducting a dialogue to achieve consensus.

* The National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) was one of the most infamous and feared organs of the Al Bashir dictatorship, that acted ruthlessly against any political dissent. The NISS was officially disbanded in July 2019 by constitutional decree “restructuring the security apparatus, to cope with the political change in the country”. The decree amended several articles of the National Security Act of 2010, in order to restructure the NISS, to adjust its competences, and to change its name to the General Intelligence Service (GIS). The new intelligence service is no longer authorised to detain people or carry out search operations.

Source: Radio Dabanga