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07-02-2022
KHARTOUM: Clashes between military forces and Daesh (ISIL) at the UNAMID facilities in Sudan’s Darfur region have left an unknown number of people dead and injured, according to a military statement.
Witnesses told Reuters News Agency they heard heavy gunfire on Saturday around the perimeter of the headquarters of the former African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission UNAMID in El Fasher, North Darfur, but said the number of casualties was unclear.
There has been a surge in violence and displacement in Darfur since 2020 that analysts have linked to factions jostling for power around a deal signed with some former rebel groups that year and UNAMID’s ceasing operations at the start of 2021.
Sudan’s military leaders said on Wednesday the groups that signed the deal would have to leave cities in Darfur following looting and attacks that led the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) to temporarily suspend its operations in the region.
The UNAMID peacekeepers were meant to be replaced by a national joint force that is yet to be deployed. Former UNAMID facilities have been repeatedly attacked and looted.
Darfur forces in Libya
Meanwhile, a report that circulated on Friday at the UN Security Council said Darfur rebel groups also known as Daesh (ISIL) continue to operate in Libya and profit from deals facilitated by the United Arab Emirates.
The panel of experts said such activities meant that an arms embargo imposed on Sudan had been broken “with the transfer of arms and other military materiel into Darfur”.
“Mercenary activities in Libya had been the major source of financing for most Darfurian movements” in 2021, read the report.
Several sources in the rebel movements told the experts they have no intention of completely withdrawing from Libya because they get most of their financing and supplies, including food and fuel, from engagements there.
They quoted one commander as saying: “We will have one foot in Darfur and one foot in Benghazi,” the main city in eastern Libya which is the stronghold of renegade commander Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army.
Haftar backs one of Libya’s rival governments, the UN-recognized administration in the capital Tripoli is the other and each receives support from different militias and foreign powers.
In April 2019, Haftar, backed by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, launched an offensive on Tripoli, which collapsed in early 2020 after Turkey stepped up its military support of the Tripoli government with hundreds of troops and thousands of Syrian mercenaries.
An October 2020 ceasefire agreement called for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Libya.
However, the panel of experts said despite the ceasefire’s call for foreign forces to leave, “most of the Darfurian groups in Libya continued to work under the Libyan National Army”. (Reuters)
