Hundreds of residents of a village in Rashad locality, South Kordofan, have staged a three-day protest against the killing of civilians by militias allegedly armed by the Sudanese government.

A source from Teimin village told Radio Tamazuj that the protest ended on Sunday with a large demonstration in which civilians opened fire on shops believed to be owned by members of the militia.

He further disclosed that local authorities “apparently sympathized with the citizens and strongly condemned the killing of innocent people by the armed group.”

Multiple sources claimed that local authorities have began arrangements to transfer some militia elements to the state capital Kadugli “to defuse tensions between them and civilians.”

Tensions began to rise in Rashad after a member of the Hawazma/Baggara tribe was killed in July. His relatives, who belong to the Khartoum-backed Popular Defense Forces (PDF), killed a farmer and an imam, while searching for the perpetrators, SUDO UK said. All victims and alleged perpetrators are said to belong to the same ethnic group, Hawazma/Baggara, from the Rashad area.

These events led to protests and families of the two victims demanded the suspects to be permanently moved out of Rashad and that the PDF be disarmed.