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2013-07-30 Africa Horn
Tribal Clashes Spread in Sudan's Darfur
[An Nahar] Fighting between rival Arab tribes in Sudan's Darfur region spread on Monday, after festivities last week left scores dead, a leader of one of the tribes said.

"This morning there was fighting in the Garsila area. It's still going on," said Ahmed Khiri, a Misseriya tribal chief.

The rival Salamat tribe could not immediately be reached for comment and Khiri could say no more.

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Garsila is about 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of the Abugaradil area, where fighting between the two tribes on Friday and Saturday killed 94 people, mostly Salamat, Khiri said at the weekend.

The Salamat said 52 of their men died during those festivities in the southwest of Darfur on the borders with Chad and the Central African Republic.

Inter-tribal and inter-ethnic fighting has been the major source of violence in Darfur this year, leading to the displacement of an estimated 300,000 people in the first five months alone, the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
-U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) says.

That is more than in the previous two years combined.

Fighting between Misseriya and Salamat in April led 50,000 to flee into Chad, the United Nations
...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly...
said.

The two tribes signed a peace agreement on July 3 under which they were to pay compensation to each other, and refugees would return.

On Saturday in North Darfur state, two other Arab tribes, the Beni Hussein and Rezeigat, inked a peace deal to end a separate conflict, which a member of parliament said killed hundreds over several weeks.

Darfur's top official, Eltigani Seisi, told the ceremony that "absence of the state authorities led to fighting", and he called for a clampdown by security forces.

He was quoted by the official SUNA news agency.

At the same event, Vice President Ali Osman Taha said President Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to Arabize Darfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
is "working out a comprehensive vision on finding radical solutions to Sudan's problems and addressing causes of conflict in Darfur," SUNA reported.

Bashir is wanted by The Hague-based International Criminal Court
... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide allegedly committed in Darfur.

The Salamat in April had accused members of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police of joining fighting in Rahad el Berdi near Umm Dukhun in Darfur, which the tribe said left dozens dead.

UN experts and human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
activists have also accused government security forces of involvement in Darfur's tribal fighting.

But Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the head of UNAMID, has said the nature of the tribal disputes -- mainly competition for land, water and mineral rights -- made it hard to tell who was on which side as police and militia also had ethnic affiliations.

Prior to this year's surge of violence, there were already 1.4 million people in camps for people uprooted by Darfur's conflict, which began a decade ago when rebels from ethnic minority groups rose up against what they saw as the domination of Sudan's power and wealth by Arab elites.

Security problems have more recently been compounded by the inter-tribal fighting, kidnappings, carjackings and other crimes, many suspected to be the work of government-linked militia and paramilitary groups.
Posted by Fred 2013-07-30 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11136 views ]  Top
 File under: Govt of Sudan 










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