Renewed ethnic violence in the Darfur region of Sudan has led to the loss of life and displacement of more than 15 thousand people in the last week.
This was stated by the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) in a note, according to which the new wave of violence was triggered by a personal dispute between two men of Masalit ethnicity and a nomadic Arab group near the town of El Geneina, in West Darfur, when a group of armed nomads attacked a local market, set fire to part of the village and killing nine people, including two children. Fighting subsequently spread to other villages causing 11,100 people to be displaced within the town of El Geneina and an estimated 4,500 others to flee across the border to Chad. A joint security force has been dispatched to the area in an attempt to quell the violence.
