Over 30,000 flee during 2 weeks of fighting in Sudan's Darfur - UN

PanARMENIAN.Net - More than 30,000 people have fled during two weeks of fighting in Sudan's Darfur region, the United Nations said after some of the worst clashes between government troops, rebels and rival tribes reported there for months, Reuters reported.

Conflict has raged in Darfur, a vast arid region in the west of Sudan, since 2003 when mainly non-Arab tribes took up arms against the Arab government in Khartoum, accusing it of political and economic marginalization.

Fighting between the army and rebels - and divisions among the insurgents - have scuppered years of international mediation and several rounds of peace talks. Violence has ebbed from the peaks of 2003-4 but has picked up in recent weeks and banditry has also spread.

Around 30,000 people fled their homes in Golo and Guldo towns to escape two weeks of fighting that began on December 24 in Darfur's Jebel Marra area, prized for its fertile land, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report.

Some 2,800 people fled to a camp in Nertiti in central Darfur, already home to 42,000 displaced people, the report said late on Thursday, citing figures from the government and a community leader.

Rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction led by Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur have seized the towns of Golo and Rockero, Darfur's international peacekeeping force UNAMID quoted a local leader as saying on Wednesday. The government denied losing the territory and said it had repelled a rebel attack.

Several thousand people also fled when fighting broke out this week between two Arab tribes over the use of a gold mine in the Jebel Amer area of North Darfur, UNAMID said on Friday, January 11.