KHARTOUM: An Arab militia firing heavy machine guns killed more than 50 people in Sudan's Darfur region on Saturday, residents said, continuing unrest that has caused the largest displacement of people in years.

“They came on Land Cruisers, used Dushkas and they burned 30 houses killing 53 people,” said one resident of El Sireaf town, to which most of the 100,000 people displaced or severely affected by the earlier tribal fighting had fled.

Another resident, who said he was wounded, also gave a figure of 53 dead.

The two said the attackers belonged to a militia of the Rezeigat tribe, which has been fighting rival Arabs from the Beni Hussein group since early January in the Jebel Amir gold mining area of North Darfur state.

“We are in the cemetery burying these people,” the first resident said, adding that the dead included two women and two children.