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At least 15,000 people arrived in Payinjiar county as fighting intensified in Leer, Koch and Mayiandit areas between government forces and the armed opposition faction (SPLM-IO) in recent weeks, opposition officials told Sudan Tribune
John Tap Puot, an area commissioner for SPLM-IO, said many civilians have assembled in Nyal payam, seeking shelter due to fighting in neighbouring counties.
At least 16 people have been killed and more than 20 others injured in renewed fighting since Thursday in northern Somali town of Galkayo between forces loyal to the rival states of Galmudug and Puntland.
Some 15 people were killed when fighting broke out on Thursday between security officers of the two rival regional states while a businessman was killed on Friday in the battle that also left a member of Galmudug State Parliament injured after gunmen opened fire on him.
Three suicide bombers attacked the island of Koulfoua on the Chadian side of Lake Chad on Saturday, killing around 30 people and injuring 80, two security sources told Reuters.
The sources said the attacks coincided with market day. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attacks although the swampy maze of islands has previously been targeted by Islamist militant group Boko Haram from neighboring Nigeria.
Recent fighting between local armed groups and the South Sudan army in the country’s Western Equatoria region has forced over 4,000 people to flee into a remote corner of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN Refugee Agency said.
Two UNHCR teams have so far this week registered 3,464 newly arrived refugees in areas near the border in DRC’s Dungu Territory, following clashes between the army and an armed group known as the “Arrow Boys.”
A new rebel faction in South Sudan’s Eastern Equatoria state has on Thursday claimed to have overrun a police post in Idolu, some 35 kilometers east of Torit town, capital of the state.
The new rebellion has raised fears of further escalations of violence in the area despite a peace agreement signed between president Salva Kiir and armed opposition faction, SPLM-IO, led by former vice president, Riek Machar, ending a 21-month long violent conflict in the country.
Residents told Sudan Tribune on Thursday that armed men in military trucks and wearing uniforms similar to the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), which is the official army of South Sudan, appeared in the village of Idolu and without facing resistance declared control of the police post located outside the state capital, Torit.
Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia have overrun another town – this time Buqda in central Somalia, following the departure of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) forces.
Despite pledging to return to retake the area, originally liberated from the militants only weeks before, Buqda became the third town to fall into the hands of the Takfiri group in a matter of days, joining El Saliindi, 65 km south of the capital, Mogadishu, and Kuntuwarey, on the road between the capital and the port of Barawe, both in the Lower Shabelle region.
With presence of Somali prime minister Omar Abdirashid, Galmudug and Puntland leaders have jointly signed a ceasefire deal, ending the persistent conflict in the divided Galkayo town.
Wednesday’s peace agreement is meant to stop weeks of armed clashes between Galmudug and Puntland forces in Galkayo which claimed the lives of at least 15 people while 30 others left wounded.