Deadly Shootout in Lawless City in Sudan's Darfur

A Sudanese policeman was killed in a shootout with gangsters in North Darfur capital El Fasher on Tuesday in the latest sign of growing lawlessness in the state, sources said.

A medical source at the hospital in El Fasher told AFP the dead policeman was brought in with two wounded colleagues.

"There was shooting in the eastern El Fasher market area, between police and gangsters," a resident said.

Another local source said an exchange of fire apparently occurred between security forces and a drug gang.

North Darfur state governor Osman Kbir survived an ambush on Saturday during a visit to a town north of El Fasher briefly seized by rebels, a source familiar with the incident said.

Kbir has denied the ambush in state-linked media.

Since late February, rebels have also attacked an area in the southeast corner of Kbir's state, while another uprising erupted in the far west, where local sources said militia loyal to Musa Hilal took control of Saraf Omra town.

Rebel-government battles are no longer the main source of violence in Darfur, where insurgents from ethnic minority groups launched an uprising against the country's Arab elites in 2003.

Over the past two years, Sudan's deteriorating economy has led to worsening crime, as well as deadly clashes between rival Arab tribes, a February report by UN chief Ban Ki-moon said.