Sudanese official says 48 killed in tribal clashes in Darfur

Tribal clashes in Sudan's restive Darfur region killed at least 48 people last week, a refugee official said Wednesday, the latest round of inter-communal violence to hit Sudan's neglected peripheries.

The fighting is the first reported large-scale tribal violence in Darfur since August — even as eruptions of tribal clashes over the past months have killed more than 350 people in Sudan's southern Blue Nile province.

The clashes between the Misseriya and the Rezeigat tribesmen erupted near the village of Juguma in Central Darfur last Wednesday, following an armed robbery, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.

Some 24 of the victims were killed on Saturday, after unknown gunmen opened fire on people trying to mediate the conflict, OCHA said. Adam Regal, a spokesman for a local organisation that helps run refugee camps in Darfur, told The Associated Press that the death toll from last week's clashes is likely higher. The increase in violence across the south and west of Sudan comes as the country's ruling generals and the main factions of the sprawling pro-democracy movement are engaged in internationally backed trying o revive the country's democratic transition.

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