- The events have taken place in Kulbus, in West Darfur.
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| File image of Sudanese women in Darfur. / Wikipedia |
A new outbreak of violence led by militias in the conflictive region of Darfur, in western Sudan, has caused a hundred deaths and thousands of displaced people in rural areas, warned in recent hours a person in charge of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
"Credible reports reaching UNHCR in Sudan indicate a horrific toll in Kulbus, West Darfur after a land dispute escalated into a militia attack on several villages," said UNHCR's Senior Situation Coordinator in Darfur, Toby Harward, on his personal Twitter account.
As a result of this escalation of violence there have been "nearly 100 deaths and thousands of displaced people in neighboring towns," he added.
Harward highlighted the need for the joint forces, created last December by the Sudanese government with members of the Regular Army and the armed rebel movements with whom it signed a peace agreement last year, to restore order in the area and protect the civilian population and for local community leaders to start a dialogue.
Darfur, which experienced an ethnically colored civil war between 2003 and 2008 with more than 300,000 dead and 1.8 million displaced and where there was a UN peacekeeping mission until December 31, 2020, is the scene of frequent outbreaks of violence, particularly due to tribal conflicts.
Concern about agricultural activity
The UNHCR coordinator in the region warned that if the violence continues in the area, "farmers will not be able to grow crops and the agricultural season will be lost", which "will be disastrous for all communities".
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warned a few days ago that more than 10.9 million Sudanese, about 30% of their population, suffer from extreme famine.
The agency attributed this situation, the worst in the last decade, to internal armed conflicts, the effects of the covid-19 pandemic, drought, plagues, and economic instability in the region, and anticipated that it could worsen due to the effects of the war in Ukraine.