Farmers in North Darfur have appealed to the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdel Wahid Mohamed Nur to deploy additional forces to protect their crops, saying armed herders are driving livestock onto farmland already threatened by drought.
Farmers in Khazan Tunjur, in Tawila locality, told local Sudanese media on Monday that livestock were damaging fields east of Masal camp, around the Kanjara area.
One farmer said growing numbers of armed herders were arriving near the fields, raising fears that livestock could overrun large stretches of cultivated land.
The Sudan Liberation Movement, which controls the area, has forces stationed nearby. However, the farmer said their numbers were insufficient to protect the fields from the large concentrations of livestock surrounding them.
Another farmer warned that the influx of herders could spell disaster for the agricultural season, urging the movement to send reinforcements.
He said poor rainfall and dried-out grazing land around Tabit and Kolgi had driven many herders towards Khazan Tunjur in search of pasture.
The appeals come as large parts of Tawila and Dar es Salaam localities face drought described by local Sudanese media as unprecedented, with erratic rainfall and crop failures threatening food supplies.
The deteriorating conditions are also raising the risk of livestock deaths across wide areas of North Darfur.
