Clan violence kills around 12 in eastern Chad
August 23, 2007 (N’DJAMENA) — Clashes between rival ethnic clans in eastern Chad’s Dar Tama region have killed around a dozen people in recent days, military and government officials in the central African country said on Thursday.
A resurgence of old feuds between the Tama tribe and the Zaghawa clan of President Idriss Deby has exacerbated unrest in the desolate east, already racked by rebellion and subject to cross-border raids from Sudan’s neighbouring Darfur region.
“The clashes picked up again on Wednesday. The security forces have intervened between the two sides to try to restore order and security,” said one military source in the region.
A second security source said 11 Tama and one Zaghawa had been killed in the violence, which centred around Dar Tama’s main town of Guereda. The situation had since been brought under the control of the army, the source said.
Residents said there had been a resurgence in unrest since a rebel leader from the Tama tribe — Mahamat Nour — rejoined the government side last December in a propaganda coup for Deby, whose forces are battling multiple insurgencies in the east.
The communal unrest was the main topic of discussion at a cabinet meeting in the capital N’Djamena on Thursday.
“The cabinet discussed the worrying security situation in the region around Guereda where intercommunal violence is starting to take on dramatic proportions,” government spokesman Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said.
“The administrative and traditional leaders as well as regional political leaders must use all means possible to convince the communities to renounce the use of arms to resolve conflicts linked to difficulties living side by side,” he said.
Such is the mutual hatred between the clans, that some victims of tit-for-tat killings have in the past been mutilated, women have been raped and homes destroyed.
The situation in Dar Tama mirrors the intertwined ethnic conflicts that underpin the broader violence in eastern Chad and in Darfur, where tens of thousands of people have been killed since 2003 in a war between local rebels and the Sudanese army.
Arab Janjaweed raiders from Darfur have also been marauding over the border into eastern Chad, looting cattle and killing their owners.
(Reuters)