Curfew in Sudan’s troubled Darfur

KHARTOUM: Authorities in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region have imposed a curfew and placed two districts under military rule after a month of unrest, official media said yesterday.
The crackdown in the country’s far west follows an attack on Tuesday against the top official of Kutum town, northwest of the North Darfur state capital El Fasher.
Osman Yousif Kibir, the state governor, assigned Brig. Mohammed Kamal Nour “to assume executive and administrative supervision in Kutum and Al-Waha” districts, the state SUNA news agency reported.
Violence broke out in early August in Kutum when Abdelrahman Mohammed Eissa, the head of Al-Waha district, was shot dead during a carjacking attempt.
Members of Eissa’s tribe retaliated with looting and attacks on a camp for people already displaced in the region’s conflict, which dates back nearly a decade, according to Darfur’s top official Eltigani Seisi.
He added that eight people, half of them security officers, were killed.
The entire population of the Kassab displaced persons camp — 25,000 people — fled because of the fighting, the UN said. By late August most had returned.
In the latest disturbance, the Kutum government head “was rescued from an attack” but others with him were killed and injured, the official Radio Omdurman reported on Wednesday without giving more detail.
In response, the governor declared emergency measures including the 06:00 p.m. to 07:00 a.m. curfew for Kutum and a state-wide ban on weapons, “except in conditions of necessity,” SUNA reported.
Troops had been sent in to restore order in Kutum after Eissa’s killing, part of an upsurge of violence in the state last month.
Late last week, officials in Jordan said initial investigation showed that two peacekeepers from their country had been kidnapped from Kebkabiya town, North Darfur. The peacekeepers went missing on August 20.
In Mellit, north of El Fasher, official media said six people were killed in mid-August but security forces averted a tribal dispute.