Another article that states the obvious. But very good intro so I recommend reading it.
Here is an excerpt:
A crime wave has taken hold of Darfur. Carjackings, armed robberies and the occasional murder largely have targeted aid workers, who now say they long for an easier time in the region — when all they had to worry about was war between Darfur's rebels and nomads and the Sudanese government. The roads were safer then. In humanitarian circles, war is easy. Crime is hard.
On Monday last week, it happened to UNICEF. On Tuesday, it happened to Doctors Without Borders. And on Wednesday, on the road outside El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, it happened to a truck driver called Adam Ahmad Osman.
Nine armed bandits hijacked the World Food Program truck that Osman was driving. He was on his way back from delivering hundreds of tons of food to displaced people living in camps, so the truck was empty. It's the fourth time he has been robbed in a little more than a year. And he has every reason to believe it will happen again.
Banditry, the scourge of any war-torn frontier, is flourishing in Darfur. Nearly every aid organization has been hit, and even Sudanese government ministries have been carjacked. This year, bandits have snatched 76 World Food Program trucks; 35 drivers are still missing. And yet, when people commit such
crimes, they end up robbing themselves.
We are experiencing something brand new in Fasher. Power outages that are reported due to the fact that the military has taken all the fuel needed to power the city's generators, so that it can launch a military campaign somewhere. The reports of attacks two days ago in the vicinity may have provoked this need for a military response, but taking all the fuel? That has left many of us wondering when power will return. Some are guessing a few days until more supplies can reach us from Khartoum. In the meantime, the heat continues to rise and Fasher is a peaceful as ever.
Crime is definitely up but it usually involves men pushing guns in your face and you releasing your vehicle and personal belongings to them. The carjackings are rarely violent but the risk is there. Too many people have been injured physically or psychologically when abducted along with the vehicle into the desert and left to make their way back to a town for help.
What is different for Fasher today is that the car jackings are happening in the center of town and in broad daylight. The criminals are getting braver. Vehicles are usually recovered the same day they are stolen but it is no less rattling for staff who have to travel routes with reputations for highway robbery.
The one way to respond to this is to travel less to the field or to rent cheap and undesirable vehicles. But that is not an option for NGOs who deliver food to the vulnerable in the rural areas. You want a reliable vehicle to cross the desert, and so do the criminals.
Hard choices to make.
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