Refugees flee camp in Darfur

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KUTUM, Sudan, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Many of the 25,000 people driven from a refugee camp in the Darfur region of Sudan are without water and food, U.N. workers said Friday.

A U.N. agency said the Kassab camp has been abandoned because of fighting between the government and tribal groups that began 10 days ago, CNN reported. The residents are in Kutum, a nearby town, or in the Kariba area and have no facilities for food, water and sanitation.

Chris Cycmanick, who works for the joint African Union-U.N. mission in Sudan, UNAMID, said the clashes involve tribal militias.

"It is a complex situation with multiple armed groups," he said. "What the people have asked for mostly is security and medical care, so we are trying to provide that. They say they want to return to Kassab camp, but very few of them have returned."

Those living in the camp in North Darfur have been displaced at least once, driven from their homes.

Cycmanick said there has been an "uptick in criminal activity" in Darfur, although the region has calmed somewhat since the worst of the fighting there made it an international cause. But he said violence continues even though the news media and international community are now more interested in South Sudan, which recently became independent, and the uprisings in Libya, Syria and other Arab countries.