Sudanese Rebel Leader Killed in Nyala

Nyala — The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North Democratic Revolutionary Movement (DRM)* led by Yasir Arman says that one of its leaders, Abdelazim Suleiman Jumah, was killed during shelling in Nyala, South Darfur, on Friday.

A shell reportedly fell on Jumah’s house. Fighting has escalated in Nyala in the past weeks and many remain trapped in the town.

The DRM, which is a breakaway faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), said in a statement that Abdelazim is considered the movement’s third leader to be killed in Darfur during the recent war.

Abubakr Youssef, the movement’s deputy chairman for West Darfur, and Mustafa Mohamed Ali, a member of the leadership office in West Darfur, were both killed in El Geneina.

Tribal leaders, activists, lawyers, and prominent civil society members or political leaders were deliberately targeted in the violence in West Darfur. In Nyala, this pattern seems to be repeating itself as lawyers and rebel leaders are targeted again.

Jumah was the political secretary of the ‘New Sudan’ Students’ Front at Imam El Hadi University and the cultural secretary of the Khartoum State Central District.

The movement condemned the targeting of civilians by both sides of the war and called for the protection of civilians in all parts of Sudan, especially in Nyala.

Destroying a town the size of Nyala is a war crime, the DRM said.

* The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North Democratic Revolutionary Movement-North (SPLM-N DRM or just DRM) was called into life in August 2022 by elements of the SPLM-N opposed to the October 25, 2021, military coup and in support of the subsequent pro-democracy protests. Yasir Arman was elected chairman three days after him and Malik Agar, head of the SPLM-N Agar, agreed to “separate amicably“, citing different views on the coup. Arman had been the deputy head of Agar’s faction. The DRM said that it does not want any conflict with the SPLM-N Agar or the SPLM-N faction led by Abdelaziz El Hilu.