35 killed as Pakistan tribal feud sparks sectarian fighting

A land feud between tribes in northwestern Pakistan has spilled over into days of sectarian fighting with machine guns and mortars, killing 35 people so far, officials said on Sunday.

The Sunni Muslim Madagi and Shia Mali Khel tribes 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 religious tensions between the clans who live side-by-side in the district of Kurram on the border with Afghanistan.

"Initially a land dispute, the issue has now escalated into sectarian violence," Hussain told AFP, confirming the conflict "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 Pakistan.

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.

"The conflict, now in its fifth day, has escalated into a Shiite-Sunni dispute," he said.

"All attempts to resolve the conflict have failed."

Pakistan is a Sunni-majority country where Shias frequently face discrimination and violence.

The government official said the Shia tribe had "suffered most" in the conflict, with 30 of those killed from the minority sect.

A police source, who asked not to be identified, said both sides were using automatic weapons and mortars in fighting focused 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.

Kurram is part of the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a semi-autonomous area that was merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province 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.