At least 36 people were killed and 32 others injured in fresh tribal clashes in Sudan’s South Darfur State, local authorities announced on Monday.
“A tribal clash broke out between tribal components at Mandawa, Marmasa and Majangary areas in South Darfur State,” Musa Mahdi, South Darfur State Governor, said in a statement.
He added that the fighting broke out on Saturday and continued until Sunday morning.
He further stressed that the joint forces, sent by the state, have controlled the situation at the dispute areas and separated between the warring tribes.
Official news agency SUNA said calm was restored by Monday.
“Military forces were deployed to the areas of clashes to resolve the conflict between Fallata and Taisha tribes which left 36 killed and 32 wounded,” SUNA reported late on Sunday quoting South Darfur officials.
It was not immediately clear what triggered the clashes but similar fighting often erupts in the Darfur region over land and access to water.
Um Dafuq resident Eissa Omar told AFP news agency “we heard the sound of heavy weapons throughout the fighting” which broke out Saturday and continued on Sunday.
In January, renewed clashes between Arab and non-Arab tribes in the West and South Darfur regions killed more than 250 people.
The violence came as Sudan navigates a rocky transition following the toppling of longtime president Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, after mass protests against his rule.
The transitional government installed after Bashir’s removal has been pushing to end long-running conflicts including in Darfur.
It signed a landmark peace agreement with multiple key rebel groups in October, and it is currently in talks to forge peace with the remaining two holdout groups.
The recent violence in Darfur appeared not to involve any signatories to the October peace deal.
On December 31, a hybrid United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission ended its operations in Darfur.
Darfur was the site of a bitter 2003 conflict pitting African ethnic minority rebels against Arab nomads backed by the Khartoum government under Bashir.
The deadly conflict – which killed some 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million – subsided over the years but inter-ethnic clashes still occasionally erupt.
