Clash over land kills 9, injures scores in Chad

N'DJAMENA, Aug 30 (Reuters) A dispute over land between two ethnic groups in Chad's remote desert north has killed nine people and injured around 50 more, the central African country's government said today.

The clash between members of the Kamadja and Anakaza ethnic groups happened in the Saharan town of Faya on Sunday. At least 20 of the injured had to be taken to hospital in the capital N'Djamena, more than 750 km away.

''The situation is currently under control and calm has returned,'' Communication Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said in a statement.

''The local authorities and security forces warn any extremists who try to profit from these attacks to sow disorder that they have taken the necessary measures to contain the tensions,'' he said, without giving further details.

Chad is one of the world's poorest countries, whose people get by on an average income of 250 dollars a year and can expect to live just 48 years.

Clashes over grazing land, which desertification has made increasingly scarce, are common on the edge of the Sahara, where semi-nomadic groups move between oases and pasture land for much of the year but return to permanent villages during the rains.

REUTERS KR PC1740