KHARTOUM, 3 August 2007 — More than 100 people have been killed in clashes between Arab tribes over land and scarce resources in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region this week, an official and a tribal leader said yesterday. Terjem tribal leader Babikir Elias blamed a rival tribe, the Rezeigat, for the majority of the killing, which took place over the past week in South Darfur state.
“A group of heavily armed Rezeigat Abala attacked the Terjem on Tuesday in an area called Gawaya in South Darfur and killed 51 people, including old men, women and children,” Elias told Reuters. The Terjem were at a funeral mourning the deaths of 65 of their tribesmen who died in clashes, also with the Rezeigat, earlier in the week in Bulbul, near Nyala, he said.
“There are conflicting reports on the total numbers of casualties, but most reports indicate tens (dozens) of deaths and injuries,” the United Nations said in a bulletin on Tuesday. “Nearly all the victims were from the Terjem tribe,” Abdul Rahman Al-Zein, the minister of labor in the South Darfur government, told Reuters from Nyala, the state capital.
Elias said the Rezeigat used assault rifles and machineguns mounted on pick up vehicles in the attack, adding that Terjem men responded and a gunfight ensued that lasted several hours. “The authorities found the bodies of three Rezeigat tribesmen,” said Zein.
The development came as the United Nations on Tuesday passed a resolution to send 26,000 peacekeepers to Darfur, raising hopes for the deployment of a force that could for the first time provide real protection to civilians in the embattled region.
Also yesterday, at a meeting of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council in Ethiopia, five African countries pledged to contribute troops to the joint AU-UN force for Darfur, with Addis Ababa saying it may offer as many as 5,000 soldiers.
In Sudan, the independent daily Al-Sudani and the opposition Raie Al-Shaab newspaper, both reporting from Nyala, the provincial capital of South Darfur, said the clashes between the Rizzaigat and the Tarjem tribes near the city left at least 82 men dead and at least 20 others injured. It was not clear what had triggered the violence.
Farah Mustafa Abdallah, the province’s deputy governor, did not deny the clashes but cautioned there was no official count of the dead.
“It is nothing new, such clashes do occur over watering spots and grazing areas, it is to be seen within that context,” Abdallah told The Associated Press by phone from Nyala. He added that the situation was “now fully under control” and denied media claims it was getting out of hand.
