PESHAWAR, Pakistan, July 29, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - At least 42 people have been

killed in a land feud between tribes in northwestern Pakistan, officials said
on Monday, during days of fighting with machine guns and mortars.

Inter-family feuds are common in Pakistan but they can be particularly
protracted and violent in the mountainous northwestern region of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, where communities abide by traditional tribal honour codes.

The Sunni Muslim Madagi and Shiite 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.

No one was wounded in that attack but 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.

"A ceasefire was achieved in Kurram tribal district through government
efforts. However, shooting resumed later at night," said a senior official
from the provincial interior ministry in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who requested
anonymity because was not authorised to speak to the media.

He said local police had put the death toll at 42 -- all men -- with 183
wounded, including some women, since Wednesday. The death toll had been put
at 35 on Sunday, with more than 150 wounded.

Tribal fighters are bound by the honour code not to target women, children
and homes.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the violence has taken a "heavy
toll on ordinary citizens" whose movements have been curtailed by the
violence.

"HRCP calls on the KP government to ensure that the ceasefire being brokered,
holds. All disputes, whether over land or born of sectarian conflict, must be
resolved peacefully through negotiations convened by the KP government with
all stakeholders represented," it said in a statement.

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

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.