The most recent ethnic riots over land issues took place in Sudan‘s southern Blue Nile province, where fighting lasted for two days and resulted in at least 150 deaths.
Crowds protested in the streets of the state capital of Blue Nile, Damazin, on Thursday, singing slogans decrying a conflict that has claimed hundreds of lives so far this year. The killing is the worst in recent months.
“A total 150 people including women, children and elderly were killed between Wednesday and Thursday,” said Abbas Moussa, head of Wad al-Mahi hospital. “Around 86 people were also wounded in the violence.”
As a result of reported disputes over land between Hausa people and competing groups, fighting broke out in Blue Nile last week. According to locals, hundreds of people fled the area under heavy gunfire, and homes were set on fire.
The Wad al-Mahi region, located 500 kilometres south of the capital Khartoum, has been the focal point of the conflict.
Hundreds marched in Damazin on Thursday, with some demanding the removal of the state governor. The protesters shouted, “No, no to violence.”
The head of UN aid for Sudan, Eddie Rowe, expressed his “great worry” over the ongoing fighting, noting that since the most recent disturbance started on October 13, “an unverified 170 people have been murdered and 327 have been injured.”
By early October, 149 people had died as a result of tribal conflicts that started in July. 13 more people were killed in fresh fighting last week, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Following a land dispute, the Hausa, a group with origins in West Africa, and the Berta people engaged in combat in July. On Thursday, a group speaking for the Hausa claimed that they had been attacked during the previous two days by people carrying heavy weapons, albeit they made no mention of any particular tribe or group as the perpetrators of the attack.
In a statement, a Hausa demanded an end to the “genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Hausa” and a de-escalation of the situation. The clan has long been on the margins of Sudanese society, and the violence in July sparked a wave of Hausa protests all around the nation.
There are many different ethnic groups living in the Blue Nile, and long-standing tribal conflicts are frequently stoked by hate speech and prejudice.
OCHA stated that at least 1,200 people had been displaced by the violence since last week but did not have proof of the most recent spike in casualties.
Later on Thursday, the Resistance Committees, a local pro-democracy organisation in Sudan, accused the military government of failing to safeguard ethnic groups and claimed that there was a lack of protection along the Blue Nile.
OCHA added that 19 people were killed and numerous more were injured in adjacent West Kordofan province due to tribal fighting that erupted last week. A property dispute located near the village of Al Lagowa led to a shooting between the Misseriya and Nuba ethnic groups.
The governor of West Kordofan state went to the town on Tuesday to speak with locals in an effort to defuse the situation before falling under artillery fire from a nearby mountainous location, according to OCHA.
“Fighting in West Kordofan and the Blue Nile states risks further displacements and human suffering,” OCHA said. ”There is also a risk of an escalation and spread of the fighting with additional humanitarian consequences.”
The Sudanese army charged the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, a rebel organization active in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile, with being responsible for the attack on Al Lagowa on Wednesday. The claim has received no response from the rebel group.
Around 36,500 people left Al Lagowa as a result of the violence in West Kordofan, and many of those who stayed took refuge in the army post in the town, according to OCHA. Humanitarian aid cannot now reach the area, according to the organisation.
According to Eisa El Dakar, a local journalist from West Kordofan, the conflict there is partially caused by the two ethnic groups’ competing claims to the region’s land. The Misseriya are primarily a herding tribe, while the Nuba are primarily farmers.
Over the past ten years, conflict and anarchy have wracked much of Kordofan and other southern Sudanese regions.
Since a coup in October, which halted Sudan’s hasty transition to democracy after Omar al-three Bashir’s decades of dictatorship, the country has been engulfed in unrest. He was overthrown in a popular uprising in April 2019, which opened the door for a civilian-military power-sharing administration.
Many commentators believe that the political vacuum in the area brought on by the military coup in October is the source of the recent increase in violence. Additionally, the violence has put Sudan’s already fragile economy in danger, which is made worse by gasoline shortages brought on in part by the conflict in Ukraine.