Recent Intercommunal clashes in Sudan’s West Darfur state have left no fewer than 132 people dead, its governor said Thursday.
Members of the Massalit and Arab communities have continued to engage in hostilities since Saturday in and around the state capital El Geneina, trading gun and heavy weapons fire.
Sudan’s government has declared a state of emergency in the region but that move hasn’t seen much changes.
‘According to medical reports, the number of dead is now 132,’ Mohamed Abdallah Douma, the governor of the region bordering Chad, told a press conference in Khartoum.
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‘The situation is now relatively stable,‘ he said, adding that there was ‘looting‘ but ‘no more fighting‘.
Douma blamed the fighting on militia fighters who had crossed over from neighbouring Chad and Libya and had used heavy weapons.
However, the UN had said the conflict was between Sudan’s Massalit and the Arab communities, the latest in a string of clashes since January, which has forced over 100,000 people to flee their homes.
Sudan is in the midst of a rocky transition following the toppling of long-time president Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, following mass protests against his rule.
The transitional government has pushed to build peace with rebel groups in Sudan’s main conflict zones, including Darfur, where UN peacekeepers were recently withdrawn.
Thousands have fled the latest outbreak of violence, some escaping into Chad, according to the United Nations.
The clashes have seen a power station destroyed, an ambulance attacked and a rocket-propelled grenade hitting the key Sultan Tajeldin Hospital.
The vast Darfur region was previously ravaged by a civil war that erupted in 2003, leaving around 300,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced, according to the UN.
It flared when ethnic minority rebels rose up against Bashir’s Arab-dominated government.
In a swift response, Khartoum unleashed a notorious Arab-dominated militia known as the Janjaweed, recruited from among the region’s nomadic tribes.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK