Cairo: According to tribal leaders and a rights organisation, two days of intertribal fighting in western Sudan's long-suffering Darfur region resulted in at least five fatalities.
African Masalit tribesmen and Arab shepherds in West Darfur started fighting on Thursday after two armed assailants killed a businessman in a remote location, according to leaders from both groups.
Masalit tribesmen claimed in a statement that an Arab militia was responsible for the murder. According to the tribal leaders and the rights group, the murder set off a string of deliberate attacks that resulted in the deaths of at least four additional people.
The Darfur Bar Association, a Sudanese legal organisation that focuses on human rights in the western province, later identified five victims. Both parties were urged by the group to defuse the situation.
The violence occurs as tense cross-party negotiations over how the African nation will transition to a civilian government after 17 months of military rule continue in Khartoum.
A military coup led by Sudan's top general, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan, overthrew the country's ill-fated democratic transition in October 2021 and plunged Sudan into chaos.
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However, a preliminary agreement pledging to reinstate the transition was signed by the country's ruling military and various pro-democracy forces in December of last year.
The December agreement's signatories promised last week to start establishing a new transitional government on April 11. Many influential political forces in the nation continue to oppose the agreement, though. Sudan has also experienced an increase in inter-tribal conflict in the west and south of the nation since the military coup.
Analysts attribute the violence and escalating insecurity in Sudan's remote regions to the power vacuum brought on by the military coup. Armed opposition groups claimed that the central government had excluded their areas and citizens from processes of development and wealth distribution, which led to the start of the Darfur crisis in 2003.
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Darfur is home to over 2.7 million displaced people who are residing in camps. In the neighbouring Chad, about 300,000 Darfuri refugees are currently residing. According to the UN, there are still 4.7 million people who are impacted by the situation, who are being denied basic human rights, and who depend on humanitarian aid.