At least 168 people were killed Sunday in violence in Darfur, one of the heaviest tolls in this region of western Sudan ravaged for decades by war, reports an NGO.
The violence began in Krink, 80 km from El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, on Friday, a day during which eight people had already been killed, said Adam Regal, spokesman for the General Coordination for Refugees and Displaced Darfur.
“At least 168 people were killed on Sunday and 98 injured,” Regal said, hinting the toll might rise further.
A local Massalit tribesman reported seeing dead bodies in several villages in the Krink sector, as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) urged authorities to ensure the safe transport of the injured to hospitals in the area. region.
According to the General Coordination, the violence began when armed fighters from Arab tribes attacked Massalit villages, an African ethnic minority, in retaliation for the death Thursday of two members of their tribes.
Videos and photos posted online showed columns of black smoke billowing from homes as well as patches of scorched earth where previously burnt traditional huts had stood.
The authenticity of these images might not be independently verified.
Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds of homes burned, reports the UN, during several episodes of violence in Darfur in recent months favored according to experts by the security vacuum created by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane’s putsch in Khartoum in October.
Clashes between Arab herders and African farmers over territorial disputes or access to water had already caused the death of nearly 250 people from October to December in Darfur, according to a union of pro-democracy doctors.
The region was ravaged by a civil war that began in 2003 between the Arab-majority regime and insurgents from ethnic minorities denouncing discrimination.
About 300,000 people died and nearly 2.5 million displaced during the first years of violence, according to the UN.
Sudan, which emerged in 2019 from 30 years of dictatorship under Omar al-Bashir, has been mired in the political and economic slump since the October coup.
By the end of the year, according to the UN, 20 of the 45 million Sudanese will face food insecurity. And the most affected in the country, one of the poorest in the world, are the more than 3.3 million displaced people, almost all of whom live in Darfur.
