Dozens killed, calm restored as probe is launched into Darfur community clashes
Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - The Sudanese Red Crescent said here Thursday that at least 48 persons were killed in Genaina, western Sudan, near the borders with Chad during clashes between two communities over the past couple of days.
The government in Khartoum sent a high level delegation led by the first vice-president of the Sovereign Council, Lt. General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, along with Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdouk, to help calm the situation. The delegation helped stop the escalation and formed a committee to come up with the exact number of the dead, the injured and those behind the incident.
But up till now, no official figure has been released apart from the initial figure of eight dead and a dozen injured who were evacuated to Khartoum and other nearby towns.
However, the Sudanese Red Crescent reporting from Genaina, over 750 km west of Khartoum, said at least 241 were injured, some seriously, while 48 were killed or “referred to the local morgue”.
It did not talk about those buried by their relatives, if any, as usually in Sudan, local communities hurriedly bury their dead to honor them.
But the Sudanese second man in the presidency, General Daglo, affirmed that there were no foreign elements in these clashes between the two local communities.
“We should not hang our failure on the wardrobe of foreign element. These incidents are the local making. So we do not want these incidents to just pass like something ordinary, no. We want to learn our lessons from these incidents and from the mistakes committee. We do not want to blame foreign elements of being behind these events,” he stressed in a statement to local media.
“We want to hold those who have been involved in these incidents to be held accountable. Those who remote controlled these developments shall be held responsible. We will wait for the outcome of the investigation (that has started now). We will cross the tees and dot the Is then. Anybody behind this sedition shall bear the consequences,” he stressed.
Sudanese Prime Minister Dr Abdalah Hamdouk has meanwhile appealed to local leaders of Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) that brought about the new change in the Sudan to “effectively contribute in maintaining security” in Genaina town.
The clashes broke out on Sunday night and continued until Monday during which many private properties were burned down or looted, especially in the camps of internally displaced people adjacent to the town.
West Darfur is one of six states, the size of France, that have been the scene of rebellion that engulfed most of the region.
About three or five years ago, clashes occurred between Arab mobile nomads and sedentary farmers over grazing lands.
In 2019, the situation came to almost perfect peace. The beginning of 2020 saw this community incident inside one of the six capital towns, the first of its kind since 2003.
-0- PANA MO/RA 2Jan2020
