"The violence that broke out on Tuesday continued on Wednesday. We also recorded several injuries, including to gendarmes who were dispatched to the area to restore order. The victims were evacuated to the district hospital in Kyabé," Nardji Samson, commandant of the Kyabe brigade in the province told the news agency.
The violence sparked out Tuesday when a herd of oxen invaded farmers’ fields. This set off a firestorm that led to a first clash with a corpse count of around 17 in the locality of Kyabé in the Lac Iro department.
The situation came back to normal Thursday after mediation from local authorities.
Some provinces in the central African country are occasionally the theater of inter-community conflicts. In June eleven other people died in festivities between herders and farmers in the locality of Berem, in the Kabbia department of Mayo-Kebbi East province.
| Al Ahram’s take on the story: |
They often arise when farmers accuse herders of allowing their animals to eat or trample on their crops.
The latest shootout
began on Tuesday as an altercation between a farmer and a herder in Marabe, a small village some 700 kilometres (435 miles) south of the capital N'Djamena.The trouble spread to two neighbouring villages on Wednesday, said Ali Ahmat Akhabache, governor of the Moyen-Chari province bordering the Central African Republic.
"Ten people died and 20 were maimed," he told AFP by phone, adding that police had managed to restore calm "and the situation has been fully under control" since Wednesday.
Last month, 22 people were killed in festivities between farmers and herdsmen in an area 500 km south of N'Djamena.
Violence between the two communities has become common in central and southern Chad, where many of the inhabitants are armed.
Thanks to southern Chad's relatively mild climate for the Sahel, its vegetation is lush, and for centuries it has drawn in migratory herders from arid areas, many of them Arabs, for seasonal grazing.
The nomads generally come from the arid Sahelian zones of northern Chad and increasingly want to settle in more fertile land where they can raise their camels and sheep.
| They sound like the Fulani, who’ve allied with Boko Haram. |