KHARTOUM — At least 200 people were killed in two days of
ethnic clashes in Sudan’s southern
Blue Nile state, official media said
Saturday, up from an earlier toll of 150.
اضافة اعلان
Clashes in Blue Nile, which borders Ethiopia and
South Sudan, broke out last week after reported disputes over land between members
of the Hausa people and rival groups, with residents reporting hundreds fleeing
intense gunfire and homes and shops set ablaze.
Fighting peaked on Wednesday and Thursday to some of
the worst in recent months, prompting the provincial governor to declare a
state of emergency on Friday.
“Two hundred people were killed” in three villages
in the Wad Al-Mahi area, some 500km south of the capital Khartoum, said local
as-sembly chief Abdel Aziz Al-Amin.
“Some of the bodies have not been buried yet,” he
told state televi-sion, calling on “humanitarian groups to help” local
authorities bury the dead.
Governor Ahmed Al-Omda Badi had ordered a “state of
emergency ... in the whole Blue Nile state for 30 days”, according to a Friday
provincial decree seen by AFP.
Abbas Moussa, the head of the Wad Al-Mahi hospital,
told AFP on Thursday that “women, children, and elderly” people were among the
dead.
Several hundred people had demonstrated in the Blue
Nile capital, Damazin, earlier that day, shouting: “No to violence”. Some
demand-ed Governor Badi be sacked, accusing him of not protecting them.
From July to early October, at least 149 people were
killed and 65,000 displaced in Blue Nile, according to the
United Nations.
The Hausa have mobilized across Sudan, claiming they
are discrimi-nated against by tribal law which forbids them to own land in Blue
Nile because they were the last group to arrive there.
The issue of access to land is highly sensitive in
impoverished Sudan, where agriculture and livestock account for 43 percent of
employment and 30 percent of GDP.
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