Arab and non-Arab tribes collided in Sudan’s rest in the western Darfur region over the weekend, leaving at least 18 dead with more than 50 injured, a local medical committee said Monday, adding to the list of incidents in the troubled region since the signing of a peace deal at the end. of last year and the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers.
The violence between the Arab Rizeigat tribe and Masalit in Genena, the provincial capital of West Darfur province, followed the deaths of two people from Masalit, said Salah Saleh, a doctor and former medical director at the city’s main hospital.
The circumstances of their deaths were not immediately known, he said, adding that the violence then spread to other parts of the city, The Associated Press (AP) reported.
The Sudanese Medical Committee in West Darfur says at least 54 people were injured in the clashes, which continued on Monday. It is said that armed men also opened fire on an ambulance late on Sunday and injured three medical staff. A government spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
“On Monday we woke up to the sound of gunfire … clashes are still going on and have spread to the western suburbs of the city (Geneina),” an eyewitness Abdelrahman Ahmed told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Adam Regal, a spokesman for a local organization that helps run refugee camps in Darfur, said a shell hit a deportation camp in Geneina on Monday, causing a fire that burned several houses. He shared pictures showing flames and thick clouds of black smoke. “The situation is very difficult and serious,” he said.
The clashes pose a challenge to Sudan’s transitional government’s efforts to end decades of insurgency in areas such as Darfur. Earlier this year, tribal violence in the provinces of West Darfur and South Darfur killed about 470 people.
It also displaced more than 120,000 people, mostly women and children, including at least 4,300 who crossed to neighboring Chad, according to the UN Sudan is on a fragile path to democracy after a popular uprising led the military to overthrow longtime autocratic president Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. A military-civilian government now rules the country.
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