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The number of people displaced by clashes in Darfur, Sudan has hit 123,000 people this week, according to the UN, worrying human rights experts, analysts and commentators of an outbreak of ethnic violence as the combined UN / African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur continues its Withdrawal.
Two separate attacks, January 16-17 and January 18, claimed the lives of 250 people and injured hundreds, with inter-communal violence around Krinding camp in West Darfur, which spread to the locality the next day. of Gereida, in southern Darfur, according to the UN refugee agency. .
The clashes saw fighting between Masalit and Arab communities in Krinding, a camp for internally displaced persons, and between the Falata and Reizigat tribes in the region of Gereida, a town some 85 kilometers south of Nyala, the capital of the country. State of South Darfur.
Houses were set on fire in Krinding, located a few kilometers east of El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, and thousands of displaced people fled the area, the United Nations Population Fund said in a statement. update, describing how authorities stepped up security presence and put in place a curfew.
Purulent tensions
“These incidents raise serious concerns about the imminent risk of further violence in Darfur, in an environment where decades-old ethnic and tribal tensions, still fueled by the previous regime, continue to worsen,” said Ravina Shamdasani, UN spokesperson. Commissioner for Human Rights, in a statement dated January 22.
The attacks have led a total of 123,000 people to flee for their lives, said Monday in New York Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary General António Guterres.
Local media reported that authorities in West Darfur have approved a security plan following the violence, with Sudanese government troops deployed in and around El Geneina.
Human rights groups have already documented inter-ethnic violence in the Krinding camp in December 2019, with fighting between the Masalit and Arab communities.
Militarize communities
The recent violence can be attributed to the previous government’s strategy of dealing with the insurgency in Darfur through the militarization of local tribes, some analysts say.
“For 30 years the main tribes have been armed and trained by the government, and they have been allowed to have their own militia, so there is a sense of autonomy for each particular group,” said Suleiman Baldo, an adviser. principal at The Sentry, a Washington DC-based nonprofit working on conflict.
The ousted President Omar al-Bashir has used different groups to counter the challenge of the rebel groups in Darfur.
Many of these groups were integrated into the notorious Janjaweed militia, known for its human rights abuses under Bashir, and the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary operation that emerged from the Janjaweed, according to Baldo.
The composition or recruitment of local security forces and their alignment is a key factor in perpetuating violence and retaliatory attacks, he added.
“The government must send reinforcements of forces that are not from the region because those in the region are compromised,” Baldo said this week. Africa is calling Podcast.
‘Ethnic violence’
Sudan veteran observer Eric Reeves criticized the authorities’ response on social media, calling the violence “threatening”, accusing an “unconscious” international community and the withdrawal of the UN Mission and the Union Africa in Darfur (UNAMID).
“The military response has been deliberately weak and late,” wrote Reeves, an expert for the Rift Valley Institute think tank on social media.
“South Darfur also reports vicious ethnic violence. The withdrawal of UNAMID is complete, ”he added, referring to the withdrawal of the peacekeeping mission, which runs for six months until June 30, 2021.
The sentry’s senior adviser, Baldo, highlighted the withdrawal of UNAMID and the signing of a peace accord between the government in Khartoum and rebel groups in Darfur, as an escalation of community tensions.
He said the conflict in Darfur exists on many levels, citing local conflicts over resources such as land and water, disagreements between political movements and authorities and competition between major ethnic groups.
“What you really need is social peace,” Baldo said. “It hasn’t happened yet and that’s why you are witnessing an escalation of violence in Darfur.”
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