Tribal land feud claims 35 lives as armed clashes rage in Kurram

PESHAWAR: A land feud between tribes in the northwestern part of the country has spilled over into days of fighting with machine guns and mortars, killing 35 people so far, officials said Sunday.

Two tribal groups have been fighting since Wednesday, when a gunman opened fire at a council negotiating a decades-long dispute over farmland, local police official Murtaza Hussain said.

While no one was wounded in that attack, Hussain said it reignited longstanding tensions between the clans who live side-by-side in Boshehra and Malikhel areas of the district of Kurram on the border with Afghanistan.

Hussain confirmed that the conflict had "claimed 35 lives" so far.

"The government and local leaders are attempting to halt the fighting through jirgas (tribal councils), but have not yet succeeded," he said.

Inter-family feuds are common in the country.

However, they can be particularly protracted and violent in the mountainous northwestern region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where communities abide by traditional tribal honour codes.

A senior government official from Kurram district, who asked to remain anonymous, also gave a death toll of 35 but said 151 more people had been wounded.

"All attempts to resolve the conflict have failed," he said.

A police source, who asked not to be identified, said both sides were using automatic weapons and mortars in fighting focussed around the town of Parachinar, which had been blockaded by law enforcement.

"The area is still witnessing clashes involving the use of both small and large weapons," the senior Kurram district official said.

Traffic on the main roads also remained suspended due to the continuing firing.

Kurram is part of the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a semi-autonomous area that was merged with KP in 2018.

The move brought the region into the legal and administrative mainstream, although police and security forces frequently struggle to enforce the rule of law there.