Chad ethnic attacks 'killed 200'

Some Chadians are fighting back against the attackers

More than 200 people were killed in a spate of attacks in eastern Chad earlier this week, aid workers say.

They say five villages were attacked in a three-day assault by 200 men on horseback, armed with machine-guns, which began last Saturday.

The attacks in the Dar Sila area prompted Chad to accuse Sudan of "exporting the genocide" in Darfur.

Eastern Chad and Darfur have a similar ethnic make-up and the two governments have swapped charges of backing rebels.

Chad's government called for UN peacekeepers to be deployed along the border.

The BBC's Stephanie Hancock says ethnic tensions have been on the rise in south-eastern Chad for many months, but there are signs the violence is beginning to spin out of control.

Neighbours

At least one village, Djorlo, has been burned to the ground, and there are reports that some attackers climbed up trees in order to shoot at their victims below.

Many of the dead have already been buried in mass graves.

The attackers were from local Arab groups, while the villages attacked were non-Arab - mainly Dadjo and Moro.

The aggressors reportedly shouted: "You slaves. We have arrived and now we are attacking you."

Aid workers described the attacks as a massacre, and say they are a mirror image of Darfur.

But these attacks took place deep inside Chad, at least 100 kilometres from the Sudan border.

Many of the attackers were Chadian; several of the victims claim to have even recognised their attackers as their neighbours.

UNHCR spokeswoman Ann Maymann says it is difficult to see an end to the violence.

"It's a very difficult one to tackle because it's on a civilian basis, it's not an army against an army. It's not the first attack and unfortunately it won't be the last."

Uncomfortable truth

More than 100 people were killed and several villages burned in last week's violence in the neighbouring region of Salamat, National Administration Minister Ahmat Mahamat Bachir said on Tuesday.

That violence also pitted Arab groups against their black African neighbours.

Our correspondent says it is no longer so easy for the Chadian government to blame this instability on Sudan.

It may be an uncomfortable truth, but evidence suggests Chadians are killing their fellow countrymen for ethnically-motivated reasons, she says.

While Darfur is still synonymous with ethnic killings, she says eastern Chad has a very real problem of its own.

In April, Chad rebels reached the capital, N'Djamena, before being repulsed.

Sudan denied claims it had backed Chad's rebels, while Chad denied supporting the black African rebels in Darfur.

Some two million people have been displaced in Darfur and at least 200,000 are estimated to have died in the three-and-a-half year conflict.

Sudan's government says it is disarming Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, who have been accused of carrying out genocide on its behalf.