Initiative for reconciliation after El Gedaref tribal clashes

New details have emerged from El Gedaref about the tribal clashes that took place at El Hamra area of Eastern El Galabat locality on Monday in which at least 11 people, including women and children have been killed and dozens injured.

Residents told Radio Dabanga the crisis began in March when nomads set up a village in the middle of agricultural land between Tuareit and El Hamra.

They explained that the people of El Hamra organised protests and closed the road linking El Gedaref with El Galabat last March and filed complaints to the governor and the speaker of the state Legislative Council, which led to the formation of a state committee to resolve the crisis that held its first meeting on April 10.

They reported the committee’s delay in the handling of the crisis until the end of the agricultural season and the outbreak of confrontations between the two parties.

They reported using firearms in the confrontations that doubled the number of casualties.

Reconciliation initiative

A number of notables and residents of El Gedaref launched a civil initiative for reconciliation between the two parties, explaining that they will start visiting the families of the victims to offer condolence and seek to achieve reconciliation.

The National Umma Party held the government of El Gedaref state full responsibility for the tribal clashes that took place at El Hamra on Monday and accused it of slowing down the solution of the problem in the beginning in March.

The party warned in a statement of the great ethnic strife in the state, referring to the announcement of the nomadic representative not to receive condolences for the dead, after burying the bodies of the victims in the presence of the state governor.

It appealed to the parties to the conflict to resort to the voice of reason, stop bloodshed and extinguish the fire of sedition.

It called on the government to play its part in containing the crisis and demanded that the police immediately move with sufficient forces to the scene of the incident to prevent renewed confrontations between the parties.