Alarm over renewed clashes in Darfur
Friday December 10 2021
Youth call for an end to the war in Darfur in a past march. More than 20 people have been killed in renewed clashes in Darfur. PHOTO | FILE
More than 20 people were killed on Wednesday morning in renewed clashes in Darfur.
Earlier, eight villages burned down and many residents were displaced as they fled the fighting.
The Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian group working in the area, said it is concerned by the escalating violence in the area.
“Over the past three weeks there have been successive attacks on civilians causing death and mass displacement spreading over five localities of West and North Darfur. Close to 100 people were killed and around 15 villages or displacement sites were burned to the ground in the Kerenik and Jabal Moon areas of West Darfur.
“On December 8, only three weeks after the initial attack, Jabal Moon was once again hit by new attacks with reports of new villages burnt and people fleeing,” NRC said.
The Darfur lawyers Association condemned the killings in the area and called for the formation of an independent committee to begin investigations and determine the causes of the clashes and increased insecurity in the area.
On Tuesday, an armed group kidnapped two Turkish engineers working in the Turkish Electricity Company project from the centre of El Fasher city in North Darfur.
Darfur Governor Minni Arko Manaw, said unknown assailants kidnapped the engineers in front of the security services in Al-Fashir.
In a post on social media, he said authorities would search for them.
He urged the kidnappers to set them free and not harm them.
Observers urge the government to take decisive security measures to stop the escalation of conflict in West Darfur and South Darfur.
Sudanese Political analyst Muhammad Ali Fazari said that “the attempts that were used in the past to impose security did not change the situation…There must be radical solutions to the problems.”
“The escalation [of conflict] in those areas will not stop unless decisive measures are taken to fill the security vacuum, especially since the withdrawal of UNAMID forces more than a year ago exacerbated the situation in most areas of Darfur…[At least] 12,000 soldiers from the army, police and rapid support forces should have been deployed to fill the shortage, and this did not happen.”
“The conflict in Darfur is always caused by pastures and a conflict between farmers and herders, and sometimes by motives of looting, plunder, control, and the extension and expansion of influence, especially since the tribes there are close, but they have limits. But the native administrations that interfere in the disputes between supporters and opponents renew the conflict.”