The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has warned of increasing violence in the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the IRC emergency country director, Mwiti Mungania, revealed that about 36,000 people had fled the region to neighbouring Chad in the past two weeks.

Mr Mungania said that the situation was compounded by the intensification of interethnic conflicts in Sudan, which has raised concerns about the possibility of further waves of refugees. 

The total number of refugees since the beginning of the renewed conflict in the north-eastern African country in mid-April is 190,000. Displaced people from Darfur reported harrowing acts of violence.

Since mid-April, a long-simmering power struggle between de facto president Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and former vice-president and paramilitary leader Mohammed Hamdan Daglo has been violently fought out in Sudan.

Besides the capital Khartoum, the Darfur region in the west of the country, which ethnic conflicts have torn apart for decades, is particularly badly affected by the fighting.

About two million persons have been internally displaced due to the violence, and some 500,000 have fled to neighbouring countries, including Chad.

(NAN)