Foreign Desk Report
DARFUR: Tribal clashes in Sudan’s Darfur region have killed at least 48 people in the latest bout of violence, according to state media.
“The death toll from militia attacks in al-Geneina yesterday reached 48,” local media said on Sunday, referring to the capital of West Darfur state and quoting the local branch of the country’s doctors’ union. “The bloody events which are still ongoing since Saturday morning [have] also left 97 wounded.”
Saturday’s clashes initially pitted the Massalit tribe against Arab nomads in al-Geneina, about two weeks after the United Nations and African Union ended a 13-year peacekeeping mission in Darfur. The violence morphed into broader fighting involving armed militias in the area, which left several buildings, including houses, scorched.
Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said on Twitter on Saturday he had ordered a “high-profile” delegation, including security services, be sent to West Darfur to follow up on the situation. Reporters from Khartoum said that displaced people in the Darfur region say that the withdrawal of the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission has “created a vacuum”.
This is “especially because the joint force that was created by the government which includes the police, the military, and the paramilitary rapid force is a joint force that is not accepted by most of the displaced people”. But, Morgan said that “intercommunal violence” is not new to Darfur, even when the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission was still active and had a mandate to protect civilians.
