Forty-three people were killed and 46 villages burned in tribal clashes that erupted in Sudan's western Darfur region over cattle looting, the United Nations said Thursday.
And the Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Omar Abdel Karim, told AFP by phone from El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, that "the clashes left more than 35 people dead on both sides and completely burned about 16 villages, the majority of whom are from the Misseriya al-Jabal tribe."
According to Abdel Karim, violence has erupted since November 17 between the Misseriya al-Jabal tribe and a group of Arab tribes, in the Jebel Moon area of West Darfur.
He noted that some villages inhabited by Arabs were also burned, and the residents were forced to flee to neighboring Chad.
For his part, the governor of West Darfur, Khamis Abdullah Abkar, confirmed that the clashes took place due to "differences due to the looting of camels last week," adding that "military reinforcements were sent to the area, and the situation has stabilized."
In 2003, Darfur witnessed a civil war during the rule of ousted President Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted in April 2019 following mass protests against his three-decade rule.
The war, which left 300,000 dead, according to United Nations statistics, erupted when a group belonging to African minorities took up arms against the Arab-backed Bashir government under the pretext of political and economic marginalization of the region.
Although the intensity of the main fighting has subsided in the region for years, in the area where the weapons are widespread, violence erupts from time to time due to differences between farmers and herders.
And last month, fighting erupted when the army commander, Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, announced his decisions to dissolve the institutions of civil governance, which resulted in a wave of popular protests that are still continuing today, Thursday.
On October 25, Al-Burhan overthrew the transitional government, and arrested its civilian leaders, including Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok, who remained for weeks under house arrest before being released last Sunday after signing a political agreement that did not satisfy all forces in the country.
Since the overthrow of al-Bashir, Sudan has been seeking peace in the troubled Darfur region, including the tribal clashes that erupted immediately after the withdrawal of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the region at the end of last year.