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Daud Yahya Bolad (Jan 1952- January 1992) was a Sudanese politician and rebel leader.
He came from the Fur people of the Darfur region of the country. In the early 1970s, Bolad was nominated by the Islamism National Islamic Front to be the president of the Khartoum University Students Union (KUSU). He became the first KUSU president who was not from the Arab tribes along the Nile who dominate national politics. The position was seen as placing Bolad on the fast track to national political leadership as part of the 'western strategy' of Hassan al Turabi to gain the votes of Darfur and Kurdufan. Bolad's deputy and bodyguard at this time was Tayeb Ibrahim, nicknamed 'al Sikha' after the rebar with which he attacked student demonstrators.Flint, Julie and Alex de Waal, Darfur: A Short History of a Long War, Zed Books, London March 2006, , p. 20-21 However, Bolad was arrested in 1971 by the police of then-President Jaafar Nimeiry for his high-profile militant activity and severely tortured.
Ethiopian President Mengistu Haile Mariam, one of the major supporters of the SPLA, had recently been overthrown by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. SPLA-Torit (the faction led by Garang) was thus fully engaged in fighting SPLA-Nasir in the south and could not send help to Bolad's force once it ran into difficulty.Johnson, Douglas H., The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars, Indiana University Press, 2003, , p. 140
There had been little advance preparation done in Darfur and Abd-el-Aziz al-Hilew, who had been named military commander of the expedition, did not receive enough equipment. The force was composed of Dinka fighters, who were perceived as foreigners in Darfur and the Mahdist networks, who were the only organized opposition to the government in Darfur, resented the insertion of a political competitor.Prunier, pp. 73-74 The force intended to reach sanctuary in the Marrah Mountains but had to cross an arid expanse controlled by Baggara in the dry season, in which the only sources of water were the village boreholes that were both few and well-known. Bolad's presence was soon reported by the police, with at least one source indicating that he was reported by the Mahdists.Prunier, p. 74
A force composed of regular army and a horse-mounted militia composed of Beni Halba Arabs quickly tracked and overwhelmed Bolad's force. The military governor of Darfur who directed the force was Tayeb Ibrahim 'Sikha', Bolad's old bodyguard and now both a physician and army colonel. There is no record of their meeting. The Beni Halba district town of Idd al Ghanam ("Well of Goats") was renamed Idd al Fursan ("Well of Horsemen") in celebration of the victory and dozens of Fur villages who had not taken part in defeating Bolad were burned in reprisal.Flint and de Waal, p. 25
With the failure of Bolad's insurrection and the coming to power of Idriss Déby in Chad, and resulting lowering of Libyan involvement in the region, much of Darfur subsided into a state of generalized insecurity that never reached the status of actual peace. The , a 2000 publication by Darfuri dissidents, lists Bolad as a "martyr".Flint and de Waal, p. 26
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