Dozens of people have been killed in tribal violence in a disputed area of South Sudan, the UN’s emergency response agency OCHA and a local official said Wednesday.
In a statement, OCHA said the fighting in the oil-rich Abyei area on the border with Sudan had left 36 people killed as of March 6, with an unknown number injured and reportedly 50,000 displaced.
“Tribal tensions increased in recent weeks in the Abyei Administrative Area (AAA), allegedly driven by longstanding territorial disputes, inter-tribal tensions and revenge seeking,” the agency said in a statement.
It said the fighting had been continuing since February 10 but intensified in early March, adding that humanitarian operations in the affected areas were suspended and aid workers relocated to safety.
Abyei has been contested since South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, although there have long been tensions between the Ngok Dinka community and Misseriya herders who cross the area looking for grazing.
Abyei has been under UN protection since South Sudan’s independence, and the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) deployed there also voiced its concern at the bloodshed.
