At least 24 people have been killed and thousands displaced in recent days in clashes between Arab and non-Arab tribes in Darfur, in western Sudan, which borders Chad and the Central African Republic, an official told AFP on Wednesday.

A state of emergency was put in place by local authorities on Monday evening, and will last for a month in the whole state. Calm has since returned but many security forces are still deployed, Timane added.

A theatre of tribal violence.

Darfur is often the scene of tribal violence, including territorial disputes and difficulties in accessing water. According to experts, tribal conflicts have exploded in Sudan due to the security vacuum created by the coup led by army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane in October 2021. "There have been 24 deaths on both sides since late Saturday," said Mohammed Hussein Timane, a member of the local council in Foro Baranga, a town in West Darfur state, 185km from the capital, El-Geneina.

A civil war that began in 2003 between the regime of Omar al-Bashir, who is to be ousted in 2019, and insurgents from ethnic minorities has left an estimated 300,000 people dead and nearly 2.5 million displaced, according to the UN. Tribal conflicts in 2022 killed more than 900 people, injured 1,000 and displaced nearly 300,000.