UN: At least 60 killed in Darfur attack

SANAA, July 27 (YPA) – The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said late Sunday that it had received reports that more than 60 people had been killed and some 60 injured in an armed attack in a village in Sudan’s restive Darfur region on Saturday.

The attack in Masteri village in the West Darfur state “was one of the latest of a series of security incidents reported over the last week that left several villages and houses burned, markets and shops looted, and infrastructure damaged,” the UN body added in a statement. It did not cite the source of its information.

The Sudanese government said on Sunday that it would deploy joint forces from several security agencies in Darfur after a recent resurgence of violence in the region.

The forces will be deployed to the region’s five states “to protect people and secure the agriculture season,” Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said during a meeting in Khartoum with a delegation of women from Darfur. No further details were given.

The country’s Security and Defense Council stressed the importance of “using the force necessary to save lives and property, confront all forms of lawlessness and support equal citizenship rights,” it said after a meeting on Sunday.

In a separate incident, at least 20 people died and 22 others were injured after gunmen from an unidentified militia attacked a village in the state of South Darfur, witnesses and a local community leader said on Saturday.

On Sunday, three people, including a woman, were killed during a renewed dispute between farmers and shepherds in the Al-Jarf area in North Darfur state, the Sudan News Agency SUNA reported, adding that security forces intervened and separated the two sides

The recent violence of armed factions in northern Davor prompted the authorities to declare a state of emergency on July 13.

E.M