The World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) last week issued a press release decrying a recent attack by Arab militias on members of the Four and Massaleet tribes in Sudan’s northern Darfur province. The group called for the release of eight villagers still detained by Sudanese authorities for unknown reasons and for reparations to be made to the families of those killed in the raid.
According to the press release, which is based on information provided by the Sudan Organization Against Torture (SOAT), a festering conflict between Four and Massaleet tribespersons and Arab militia from Darfur and neighboring Chad took a violent turn on April 28, 2002. On that day militia members attacked the village of Shoba, killing 17 and injuring 16, burning hundreds of homes and slaughtering livestock. Four and Massaleet leaders claim that agents of the Sudanese government led the attackers.
On May 21, eight Four villagers from Shoba were arrested by Sudanese officials and taken to the security headquarters in El Fashir. Their current condition is unknown. OMCT is calling for guarantees of the physical and psychological safety of the detainees and for an impartial investigation of the events in Shoba.
SOAT’s report drew connections between the violence and the general instability of Darfur province. Pastoralists have been vying with agriculturalists for what remains of productive land in the wake of a severe drought. Crisis envelops the whole province, with almost one million people at risk of starvation. The particular conflict between the Four and Massaleet tribes and Arab groups has displaced thousands and the struggle of these refugees to provide for themselves has led to an increase in crime in the region.
Food shortages and population pressures have most likely exacerbated tensions between various ethnic groups, but the question of whether straightforward competition for scarce resources -- or a more sustained and systematic effort to reorganize land ownership -- fuels the fighting is a matter of some dispute.
Government officials assert the conflict stems from inter-tribal competition for the remaining viable land. SOAT reports, however, that 56 Four villages in the area have been depopulated after attacks by Arab militias. Leaders from the two tribes charge that the government is pursuing an active policy of displacement, via Arab tribal proxies, in order to alter the ethnic makeup and land distribution of the region. Charges of a divide and rule approach to governing Darfur have also been made.
The Four and Massaleet are two of the hundreds of distinct tribes that constitute Sudan’s diverse citizenry. Sedentary farmers who cultivate millet in the rainy seasons, they have adopted many Arab customs including names and clothing. This has not protected them from the Arab nomadic groups who have encroached on traditional Four lands steadily since the 1980’s. An alliance of 27 Arab groups at one point declared war on the non-Arab tribes of the province, such as the Four, with no response from the central government in Khartoum.
Meanwhile, unrest plagues many other parts of Sudan. Rebels from the mostly Christian and animist south continue their war against the Northern-based government in the Nuba Mountains region and elsewhere. A recent decision to extend the current ceasefire for six months in that area coincides with reports of fresh fighting between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and government forces in southern Unity State. Control of local resources -- such as the abundant oil fields in Unity State -- and ethnic hostilities have taken on increasing urgency in the recent years of the 19-year-old war.
The OMCT urges those concerned about the welfare of the Four detainees to contact Sudanese leaders and representatives in their home countries.
