AN uneasy calm was restored to the capital of Sudan’s West Darfur yesterday, residents said, after five days of fighting between Arab and Masalit tribesmen in which scores of people were killed.
A local doctors committee said 87 people had been killed and 191 injured since Saturday in the fighting in the city, El Geneina. The violence is a new flare-up of a conflict that saw deadly clashes earlier this year and in 2019, amid deteriorating security across Darfur.
Residents told Reuters the streets had finally grown quieter, with government troops deployed for the first time since a state of emergency had been called on Monday. Fewer new injuries were reported at hospitals.
But the humanitarian situation in the city remains dire, with thousands of people in the streets, having sought refuge after a camp for displaced people was burnt down during the fighting.
“They may have become exhausted,” one doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said of the fighters. “Or maybe it’s a warrior’s rest.”
The West Darfur Doctors Committee said hospitals and medics had been attacked during the fighting, and that the city’s electricity and water supplies were cut off.
The United Nations said on Tuesday that all humanitarian aid, including to more than 100,000 people displaced in fighting in January, was on hold.
