ISLAMABAD: At least 43 people have been killed and more than 200 injured after a land dispute turned into a wider sectarian conflict between

Sunni

and Shia

tribes

in Pakistan’s restive northwestern

Kurram

tribal district, bordering Afghanistan.
Local authorities confirmed that 43 people were dead and more than 200 injured since the

clashes

started on July 24.

The warring tribes, with the help and support of a local tribal jirga, a traditional assembly of tribal elders, announced a temporary ceasefire on Monday following intense shelling and firing in the morning.
The volatile mountainous Kurram region has witnessed deadly

conflicts

among tribes and religious groups as well as sectarian clashes and militant attacks over the past several decades. According to the government’s home and tribal affairs department there are currently eight major conflicts underway in Kurram and several of them date back to the pre-Partition era.

The latest clashes erupted last week between two families — one

Shia

and another Sunni — over ownership of a property and the hostility swiftly spread to several villages and settlements before engulfing the entire district.
Among the dead, authorities said, 34 were from Shia tribes and eight belonged to Sunni tribes. Firing between Shia and Sunni tribes continued through Sunday night and Monday morning in Maqbal and Teri Mangal areas of upper Kurram, near the Afghan border; Para Chamkani in central Kurram; and Balish Khel in lower Kurram. According to locals, Sunni tribes in the area were getting support from across the border since the same families live on both sides of the Durand Line, a disputed border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Most of the villages in the area faced a shortage of food and lifesaving medicines due to clashes and closure of roads by authorities to contain the unrest as the warring sides pounded each other with small and heavy weapons.