Violent clashes between Arab and non-Arab tribes in two eastern regions of Chad have left more than 100 dead over the past week, the government said on Tuesday.
A first wave of tribal violence occurred last week in the south-eastern part of the country, killing roughly 100 people. The clashes came just one week after fighting between rebels and the army in the same region, which borders the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur, reportedly led to the deaths of around 100 guerrillas and more than 200 soldiers.
Later on Tuesday, Chadian officials announced a separate outburst of violence between Arabs and non-Arabs in the far eastern part of the country, that left "numerous victims" in recent days.
In both cases, officials furnished little explanation as to the cause of the fighting.
"Inter-tribal confrontations have taken place since November 4," in two eastern Chadian villages, Chad's Communication Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said in a statement regarding the latest bout of unrest. "These confrontations have left numerous victims on both sides."
In an earlier interview with AFP on the first unrest, National Administration Minister Ahmat Mahamat Bachir said a "problem" between Arab and the non-Arab Kibet tribes in south-eastern Chad a week ago had initially left three dead in each community. But the situation rapidly degenerated.
"The Arabs in neighbouring districts then organised attacks on the Kibet villages," Bachir explained by telephone from Am Timan, the main town in the Salamat region, where the clashes took place.
He said several villages had been burned in the fighting, which left "more than 100 dead", a number of wounded and forced others to flee their homes.
The head of the Chadian human rights league (LTDH), Massalbaye Tenebaye, said the violence had left "more than 140 people dead and 38 seriously wounded".
A dozen villages north of Am Timan had been destroyed, with "more than 400 huts burnt to the ground".
Tenebaye said it was hard to obtain a final assessment of the human and material damage because sections of the tribes involved appeared to be hiding in the bush, fearing a new flare-up.
Minister Bachir said calm had been restored to the region on November 4. He has been in leading a delegation in Salamat for the past three days "to assess the damage and conduct enquiries".
The region of Salamat borders the Central African Republic and is across the border from Darfur, where fighting pitting Arab militias backed by the Sudanese government against non-Arab black Africans has killed at least 200,000 people since early 2003.
In October, Salamat was the scene of clashes between the Chadian army and the country's rebel Union for the Forces of Democracy and Development (UFDD), a newly formed coalition opposed to the regime of President Idriss Deby Itno.
The rebels briefly occupied Am Timan and the eastern town of Goz Beida on
October 23. The incident led N'Djamena to accuse Sudan of supporting the rebels, an allegation both Khartoum and the UFDD have denied.
The Chadian authorities did not on Tuesday establish any link between the presence in the east of the UFDD rebels -- one of whose leaders is Arab -- and the clashes between Arabs and Kibets last week.
But the LTDH's Tenebaye said he could not rule out a possible connection between the two.
"Regions and ethnic groups have always been exploited for political ends," he told AFP.
He said it was impossible for the moment to say which side had started the violence. But the human rights league has regularly reported that attacks by rebels have led to reprisals against the assailants' communities. Communal violence, often sparked by long-standing rivalries or land disputes, has become increasingly common in Chad.
"In 2003 there had already been clashes between Arabs and Kibets over access to water and pasture," Tenebaye pointed out.
"We are very worried that armed conflict between the different communities will spread," he added. "Since neither the administration nor the state is running the country, everyone is resorting to warfare."