Sudan urges for reconciliation after tribal clashes in Darfur

Jan 13, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese authorities said they were pursuing efforts Saturday to reconcile tribes of ethnic African farmers and nomad Arabs in South Darfur after several dozen people were killed in a week of clashes.

The fighting illustrates the spiraling violence in Darfur, where more than 200,000 have died and 2.5 million fled their homes since 2003, when ethnic African rebels took arms against the central Khartoum government, charging it with neglect.

The government is accused of having unleashed in response the janjaweed paramilitary group of Arab nomads, blamed for the worst atrocities in the conflict.

Several other tribal militias also plague this vast, arid region of western Sudan, where scarce resources regularly pit nomadic tribes against sedentary ones.

The latest fighting in southern Darfur involved the Habania nomads and Falata ethnic African farmers, Justice Minister Mohammed Ali Al Mardhi told the independent Al-Rai al-Amm daily newspaper. He said over 200 people were killed over the past week, mainly among nomads, and that the government had sent reconciliation missions to end the fighting.

“The situation between the two sides remains inflammable,” he said.

Sudan’s Interior Minister Zubair Bashir Taha appealed to tribal leaders to stop the killing and “resort to the voice of wisdom,” said the state-run SUNA news agency.

The government’s casualty estimate could not be immediately verified, and the African Union mission deployed in Darfur said it had not investigated the violence.

“But we encourage reconciliation missions to avoid this kind of fighting over resources,” said AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni. He said the AU was also aware of separate clashes between other tribes of nomads and farmers that killed 42 people in Darfur earlier this week, according to Sudanese media.

Some 7,000 AU peacekeepers are struggling to guarantee a cease-fire in Darfur after the government and one rebel group signed a peace agreement last May.

Khartoum opposes a Security Council resolution for over 20,000 United Nations troops to replace the AU.

The acting governor of South Darfur state, Farah Mustafa Abdullah, said the situation between the Habania and Falata was now contained. He declined to give a casualty figure and said the fighting had been initiated by “unruly elements from the peripheries of the two tribes.”

“Investigation teams … are still carrying their work and we could not possibly give figures now,” he told The Associated Press by phone from Nyala, the state capital of South Darfur.

Eyewitnesses who spoke on condition anonymity for fear of reprisals said the clashes began a week ago in a zone south of Nyala when Habania nomads killed nine Falata tribesmen whom they accused of having stolen cows.

The fighting worsened, eyewitnesses said, when Habania wearing outfits similar to those of the janjaweed militia attacked a Falata settlement, allegedly sustaining heavy casualties.

The Sudanese government has barred foreign media from visiting Darfur for months, and the witnesses’ account could not be independently verified.

Sudan is geographically the largest country in Africa and is composed of dozens of tribes, deeply divided by language, religion and ways of life.

The Arab-dominated central government faces three separate ethnic African rebellions in the east, south and west of the country.

Former southern Sudan rebels signed a peace agreement with the government in 2005, but the situation remains volatile and the U.N.’s World Food Program said one of its employees was killed in an ambush Wednesday.

(AP)