Fierce clashes between African groups in south Darfur have left up to 40 people dead and prompted foreign aid workers to abandon Greida, one of the world’s largest camps for displaced people.
Fighters loyal to the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which refused to sign a peace deal in May, used mortars and machine guns to attack a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) which had accepted the deal.
”Exchanges of fire lasted for three to four hours. It was only a mile from the town,” the Guardian was told by an official from one of several aid agencies which withdrew from Greida to Nyala, the regional capital, at the weekend.
The agencies include Oxfam, Merlin, and Action against Hunger. Only the International Committee of the Red Cross has stayed on in Greida to care for an estimated 130 000 homeless people who live in a vast camp beside the town.
The fighting appears to be the worst single incident in Darfur since the peace deal was signed in May. An African Union source confirmed the figure of around 40 deaths, but described it as a ”preliminary estimate”.
An SLA spokesperson in the capital, Khartoum, accused the government of being behind the attack, suggesting relations are becoming frayed. Minni Minnawi, of the SLA faction, was recently appointed as special assistant to Sudan’s president, but there have been other hints of political tension recently. The government denied the charge while local people in Greida insisted the JEM was behind the attacks. – Guardian Unlimited Â