KHARTOUM: Clashes between Arab and non-Arab groups in Sudan’s restive Darfur region have killed at least seven people, state media reported Saturday.
Violence erupted on Wednesday around 20 kilometers from the South Darfur state capital Nyala pitting Arab herders against farmers from the Daju minority and other non-Arab ethnic groups, witnesses said.
It was not immediately clear what sparked the fighting.
“A group of herders riding camels and vehicles attacked the village of Amuri on Friday, leaving the site burnt and four people killed,” the official SUNA news agency said, adding that two people were killed between Wednesday and Thursday.
Another person was killed when the fighting spread to nearby villages, which were “partially burnt” as shops were looted, the news agency added, quoting a government statement.
At least 20 people were treated at Nyala hospital for bullet wounds, a medical source told AFP.
Security forces were dispatched to the area to contain the violence, SUNA said.
Ethnic clashes often break out in Darfur, a vast region the size of France which was ravaged by a bitter civil war that erupted in 2003.
That conflict pitted ethnic minority rebels against the Arab-dominated government of then-president Omar Al-Bashir.
Some 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced, according to the United Nations.
While the conflict has subsided over the years, violence still flares between nomadic herders and settled farmers over access to scarce water and grazing land.
Sudan is still grappling with the crippling aftermath of a military coup led by army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan in October last year.
Civilian groups signed a preliminary deal with the military to end the crisis earlier this month but it has been criticized as “opaque.”
Conflicts in Sudan’s far-flung regions have killed around 900 people this year and driven almost 300,000 from their homes, according to a report this month by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Clashes in Sudan’s Darfur kill seven: state media
https://arab.news/ne2f9
Clashes in Sudan’s Darfur kill seven: state media
- A group of herders riding camels and vehicles attacked the village of Amuri
- Ethnic clashes often break out in Darfur
Syria Kurds chief says ‘all efforts’ being made to salvage deal with Damascus
- Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal
- The two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism
DAMASCUS: Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said Thursday that “all efforts” were being made to prevent the collapse of talks on an agreement with Damascus to integrate his forces into the central government.
The remarks came days after Aleppo saw deadly clashes between the two sides before their respective leaders ordered a ceasefire.
In March, Abdi signed a deal with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa to merge the Kurds’ semi-autonomous administration into the government by year’s end, but differences have held up its implementation.
Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal, adding in a statement that the two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism, and pledging further meetings with Damascus.
Downplaying the year-end deadline, he said the deal “did not specify a time limit for its ending or for the return to military solutions.”
He added that “all efforts are being made to prevent the collapse of this process” and that he considered failure unlikely.
Abdi also repeated the SDF’s demand for decentralization, which has been rejected by Syria’s Islamist authorities, who took power after ousting longtime ruler Bashar Assad last year.
Turkiye, an important ally of Syria’s new leaders, sees the presence of Kurdish forces on its border as a security threat.
In Damascus this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stressed the importance of the Kurds’ integration, having warned the week before that patience with the SDF “is running out.”
The SDF control large swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, and with the support of a US-led international coalition, were integral to the territorial defeat of the Daesh group in Syria in 2019.
Syria last month joined the anti-IS coalition and has announced operations against the jihadist group in recent days.
