31 dead in Sudanese tribal clashes near border with Ethiopia
At least 39 others have been injured and 16 shops set on fire since violence broke out on Monday over a land dispute between the Berti and Hawsa tribes.
“We need more troops to control the situation,” local official Adel Agar from the city of Al-Roseires told AFP on Saturday.
He also asked the mediators to ease the tensions that have caused many “deaths and injuries”. He didn’t give a detailed toll.
Blue Nile Governor Ahmed Al-Omda issued an order on Friday banning any rally or march for one month. Soldiers were also deployed and a night curfew was imposed on Saturday. Clashes resumed Saturday after a short hiatus, Saturday near the state capital Al-Damazin, witnesses said.
“We heard gunshots,” said resident Fatima Hamad from the city of Al-Roseires across the river from Al-Damazin, “and saw the smoke rise” from the south.
Ahmed Youssef, a resident of Al-Damazin, said that “dozens of families” crossed the bridge to enter the city to escape the riots.
An urgent appeal for blood donations has been launched by hospitals to treat victims of the riots, according to medical sources.
A medical source at Al-Roseires hospital said the facility had “run out of first aid equipment”.
“Additional staff is needed,” the source said, adding that the number of injured is “on the rise”.
The violence erupted after the Berti tribe rejected a Hawsa request to create “a civil authority to control access to land,” said a leading Hawsa member.
But a senior Berti member said the tribe was responding to a “violation” of its lands by the Hawsas.
The Qissan region and the Blue Nile state more broadly have long seen unrest, with southern guerrillas a thorn in the side of former Sudanese president strongman Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted from the army in 2019 to following road pressures.
Experts say last year’s coup, led by army chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, created a security vacuum that has fostered a resurgence of tribal violence in a country where clashes regularly erupt. deadly on land, livestock, access to water and pasture.
