460,000 Displaced in Sudan's Darfur this Year, Says U.N.

Tribal violence and rebel-government battles have displaced at least 460,000 people in Sudan's Darfur this year, the United Nations said on Thursday, as dozens reportedly died in the latest clashes.

"According to humanitarian organizations, so far in 2013 at least 460,000 people have fled their homes in Darfur as a result of inter-tribal fighting and clashes between the SAF (Sudanese army) and armed movements," the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its weekly bulletin.

"This is more than the number of people internally displaced in Darfur in 2011 and 2012 combined," OCHA said.

The latest figure marks a jump from the 300,000 who U.N. humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos announced in May had been displaced during the first five months of the year.

Tribal violence has eclipsed rebel activity as Darfur's major security threat, Defense Minister Abdelrahim Mohammed Hussein said in a briefing to parliament on Tuesday.

The African Union-U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has also called inter-ethnic fighting Darfur's major source of violence.

Most recently, Arab militias used rockets, artillery and heavy machine-guns in battle across a wide swathe of southwest Darfur on Sunday, sources in the warring Taisha and Salamat tribes told AFP.

The Salamat have been fighting off-and-on with the Misseriya, a Taisha ally, in southwest Darfur since April.

There was no information on casualties from Sunday's battle, sparked by a land dispute.

But OCHA said its humanitarian partners and local residents reported more than 50 dead in two days of Misseriya-Salamat fighting last week, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Mukjar town.

At the same time, fierce battles erupted at another location in Mukjar district.

"The international NGO International Medical Corps (IMC) reported that they received over 30 patients with gunshot wounds in their medical facility in Umm Dukhun over the past week," OCHA said in its November 4-10 bulletin.

Other reports received by the UN suggested that both tribes suffered "heavy casualties" in additional battles during the week, OCHA said.

Fighting between the Misseriya and Salamat has killed more than 200 people since April.

The latest security problems have forced some aid groups to suspend operations in the affected areas, OCHA added.

"Local residents reported that many farms were burnt down during the recent fighting," the agency said.

Non-Arab rebels rose up 10 years ago in Darfur, seeking an end to what they viewed as Arab elites' domination of Sudan's power and wealth.

In response, government-backed Janjaweed militiamen shocked the world with atrocities against civilians.

Analysts say the cash-starved government can no longer control its former Arab tribal allies, whom it armed against the rebellion, and violent competition for resources has intensified.

Fighting between the Misseriya and Salamat since April has "become a major source of insecurity and displacement" around Mukjar, Umm Dukhun and Bundisi near Chad, OCHA said.

Since those clashes began, more than 20,000 people have been internally displaced, and since January in excess of 36,000 Sudanese have sought refuge in Chad and 3,400 have entered the Central African Republic, OCHA said.

Elsewhere in Darfur, local sources told the U.N. in early November that a total of three members from the Beni Hussein and rival Rezeigat Arab tribes were killed in clashes in the Jebel Amir area, OCHA said in its bulletin.

Fighting between the two groups early this year killed hundreds, according to a Beni Hussein legislator.

The battles, over access to gold mines, displaced an estimated 100,000 people, the U.N. said.

Darfur's top official, Eltigani Seisi, said in late October that government security forces need to be strengthened, and disarmament of the militias can come only in conjunction with rebel groups laying down their arms.

Defense Minister Hussein told parliament his forces were beginning an operation to crush the rebels.

President Omar al-Bashir and Hussein are both wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Darfur.

Before this year's upsurge in violence there were already well over one million people in camps for Darfuris displaced by the decade-long war between the government and insurgents.