In a fresh bout of violence, more than 60 people were killed and 60 injured in the West Darfur region of Sudan, the UN reported.
Around 500 armed men attacked Masteri Town, north of Beida, in Darfur on Saturday afternoon, said the statement from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“This 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 statement from the OCHA's Khartoum office read, as per an AFP report.
The attack came as Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, on Sunday, said the government would send security forces to the conflict-stricken region to “protect citizens and the farming season”. Around 20 civilians including children were killed by gunmen on Friday—this incident was the first of such a kind in many years.
Following Saturday's attack on Masteri, around 500 local people staged a protest demanding more protection from the authorities.
After Hamdok met with women in the region, a statement issued by him said, “A joint security force will be deployed in the five states of the Darfur region to protect citizens during the farming season." The recent killings have targeted the African farming tribes in conflict with the nomadic Arab tribes over the land.
In 2003, a government campaign in response to a minority uprising left 300,000 people dead and displaced 2.5 million. The region has been under conflict ever since.
