New killings between Darfur’s Arab tribes
August 2, 2007 (CAIRO) — Darfur’s nomadic Arabs, some of them part of the feared janjaweed militia implicated in atrocities against civilians, turned on each other in clashes that reportedly killed dozens this week.
Arab tribal fighting, increasing since last fall, may add to the difficulties facing a force of 26,000 peacekeepers authorized by the U.N. Security Council this week to try to stop the bloodshed in Darfur, where the bulk of violence has been between Arabs and ethnic Africans.
The rival Arab tribes are believed to be battling over land in southern Darfur, some of it left behind by ethnic Africans who fled janjaweed attacks in the region. The government, which has led over a dozen reconciliation efforts between the tribes, denied on Thursday that the violence was getting out of hand.
The Darfur conflict began in February 2003 when ethnic African tribes rebelled against what they considered decades of neglect and discrimination by the government.
The government is accused of retaliating by arming Arab nomads to form the janjaweed, which are blamed for killing and raping civilians in attacks on ethnic African villages. Khartoum denies the charges. More than 200,000 people have died, and 2.5 million have been uprooted.
The tribal violence recently stepped up in South Darfur over control of agricultural and grazing land around Nyala, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) southwest of Khartoum.
The independent daily Al-Sudani and the opposition Rai Al-Shaab newspaper, reporting from Nyala, the provincial capital of South Darfur, said Thursday that clashes between the Rizzaigat and the Tarjem tribes near the city left at least 82 dead and at least 20 others injured.
Rai Al-Shaab quoted eyewitnesses as saying that on Tuesday a group of Rizzaigat tribesmen, mounted on 12 heavily armed land cruiser pickups, attacked a group of Tarjem men in an open area some 35 kilometers (22 miles) southwest of Nyala, where they were attending the funeral of a man slain earlier in the week in another clash between the two tribes.
The paper said 52 people were killed on the spot and 20 others were injured. Later, 30 people were killed while returning home from the funeral.
Separately, the Al Sahafa independent daily reported that clashes also occurred Monday between the two tribes near al-Gawaya, some 59 kilometers (37 miles) south of Nyala. That violence left 74 people dead and injured, the paper said.
The death tolls could not be independently confirmed. The Rizzaigat are a dominant nomad tribe which follows herds of camels through the vast sectors of the region, while the Tarjem are more sedentary and raise cows.
The government in Khartoum and state media did not mention the reports and local officials downplayed the violence.
Farah Mustafa Abdallah, the South Darfur 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.”
Fighting since late December between the Rizzaigat and Maalia tribes near the southern Darfur town of Kass displaced some 6,000 people in recent weeks. The U.N. World Food Program reported that 4,300 of them received food and relief articles but that shelter remains a significant problem as the displaced are currently living in the streets.
The fighting adds a new layer of violence for peacekeepers to deal with if they deploy as planned in Darfur by the end of December. The force is mandated by a U.N. resolution passed Tuesday to protect civilians, which many observers expect will mean preventing janjaweed attacks on ethnic African villages or refugee camps where hundreds of thousands are living.
The joint U.N.-African Union force for Darfur _ long resisted by Sudan’s hardline President Omar al-Bashir _ is expected to absorb the beleaguered 7,000-strong AU force already in place. The joint force, called UNAMID, will have a predominantly African character, as Sudan demanded.
At a meeting Thursday of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council in Ethiopia, five African countries pledged to contribute troops to the Darfur force. The five were Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Nigeria, Egypt and Ethiopia.
France, Denmark and Indonesia have offered to contribute to the joint mission. Australia said it would send a small number of doctors and nurses, but no troops or security personnel
(AP)