Tribal violence Darfur’s main problem

Tribal violence is the main threat in Sudan’s western Darfur region, the country’s defense minister says.

“The tribal clashes are the biggest challenge and threat to security in Darfur, more than rebel movements,” said Sudanese Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein in a briefing to parliament in the capital Khartoum on Tuesday.

Hussein said his forces would initiate an operation against rebels in the south of the country.

“This summer will see an end to the rebellion and after that stability will return to South Kordofan and Blue Nile,” he said.

Later in the day, three tanks were destroyed near Dilling town in South Kordofan by the rebels of Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N).

“As I’m speaking to you, our forces are controlling the road,” said Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, a spokesman for SPLA-N, adding that there were “many, many casualties, many dead bodies.”

The operation, which was conducted alongside the rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), targeted a government convoy, which had travelled from Khartoum through al-Ubayyid, the North Kordofan capital, and was on its way to the South Kordofan capital Kadugli.

In a tribal fighting on Sunday, rockets, artillery, and heavy machine guns were used by militants in a battle across a wide swathe of southwest Darfur.

The joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Sudan, known as UNAMID, said on Monday that it was “gravely concerned” over recent reports of violence among Misseriya, Taisha, and Salamat tribes in parts of Central Darfur state.

Sudan accuses South Sudan, which seceded from the Republic of Sudan in July 2011, of supporting anti-government rebels operating in the Darfur region and the states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

South Sudan became independent on July 9, 2011, after decades of conflict with the north. The new oil-rich nation is one of the least developed countries in the world, with one in seven children dying before the age of five.