At least 31 killed in tribal violence in Sudan's Darfur region

West Darfur governor empowers army and police to use 'decisive force' to restore calm

An internally displaced Sudanese family poses for a photograph outside their makeshift shelter in the Kalma camp in Darfur. Reuters

Tribal violence in Sudan’s restive Darfur region has left at least 31 people dead this week, local officials said on Wednesday.

The violence is pitting members of ethnic African and Arab tribes against each, and is centred in and around the remote town of Fur Baranga near the Chadian border.

Also on Wednesday, the governor of West Darfur province, Gen Khamis Abdullah Abikr, issued a decree empowering the police and army to use “decisive force” in dealing with what a statement described as "outlaws".

On Tuesday, the West Darfur government declared a state of emergency in the province and imposed a night-time curfew for two weeks in a bid to restore peace.

“All units of regular forces [army and police] are hereby commissioned to use decisive force when carrying out their duty to fight all kinds of conduct that breaches efforts to impose security, stability and the prestige of the state across the province of West Darfur,” said the statement.

Local officials said the violence was sparked by the shooting deaths of two men earlier this week in two separate incidents in Fur Baranga.

Authorities are still investigating the motives behind the killings, they said.

Reprisal attacks followed, with homes torched and residents fleeing the scene of the violence, said the officials.

Mohammed Hussein Tayman, acting executive officer of Fur Baranga, said the death toll stood at 31 as of Wednesday morning, when the town appeared calm but tense. He did not say how many people, if any, had been wounded in the clashes.

Darfur has long been bedevilled by violence. A civil war there in the early 2000s left 300,000 people dead and displaced more than 2.5 million, according to UN figures.

That conflict involved Darfur’s ethnic central and sub-Saharan Africans taking up arms against the government to press demands for an end to perceived oppression by the Arabised political elite in Khartoum.

Sudanese gather for iftar, the fast-breaking sunset meal during the month of Ramadan. AFP

The government of dictator Omar Al Bashir, removed from power following a 2018-19 uprising, responded with a campaign of aerial bombardment and scorched-earth raids by the army and an allied militia called Janjaweed.

A peace deal signed in 2020 between the military and several rebel groups in Darfur has failed to address the root causes of conflict there, with clashes between Arab and African tribes over land, water and pasture continuing to this day.

After a period of calm, violence erupted again in Sudan’s outlying regions following a 2021 military coup that derailed Sudan’s fragile democratic transition and plunged the nation into its worst post-independence political and economic crises.

The violence is blamed in part on the political vacuum created by the coup.

The nation has had no prime minister or a proper cabinet since the coup's removal of a western-backed government. The coup was led by army chief and now military ruler Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan.

Sudan’s western backers have also suspended billions of dollars’ worth of aid in response to the coup, denying the country of more than 40 million a long-awaited chance to overhaul its battered economy.

At least five people were killed in clashes in West Darfur last month. Last October, more than 170 were killed in clashes in Blue Nile province in the remote south-east corner of the country.

Besides more than 120 anti-military protesters killed by security forces since the coup, hundreds have been killed in tribal or ethnic clashes in the west and south of the country over the past 18 months.

Also on Tuesday, the UN said it was "deeply concerned" after a video surfaced on social media showing a man calling for the world body's special representative in Sudan to be assassinated.

“I request a fatwa,” said the man, who identified himself in the video only as Abdel Moneim. “I volunteer myself to assassinate Volker [Perthes].”

The remarks were made during what appeared to be a small conference held by an umbrella group consisting of Islamist factions affiliated with Sudan's ousted president Al Bashir, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

"The language of the incitement and the violence will only deepen divisions on the ground," said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric during a briefing on Tuesday.