Tribal clashes in Sudan's troubled Darfur region has killed more than 200 people in recent days, with the UN human rights chief saying she was "appalled" at the spike in violence.

Members of the Massalit community and Arab fighters have clashed since Friday in and around the West Darfur state capital El Geneina, the latest ethnic violence in the vast, arid and impoverished region long awash with guns.

The fighting, which comes as Sudan grapples with the fallout from a coup six months ago led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has seen hospitals attacked, a police station destroyed and a market burned to the ground, according to the United Nations.

At least 213 people have been killed in three days of violence, according to an official toll from the governor of West Darfur state. The clashes have centred on Krink, a locality of nearly 500,000 people some 1,100 kilometres (685 miles) west of Sudan's capital Khartoum.

West Darfur governor Khamees Abkar called the destruction and death a "massive crime", noting that 201 people were killed and 103 wounded on Sunday alone, in a video published late Tuesday.

Krink town "was completely destroyed including government institutions," state governor Abkar said. "It is a crime against humanity."

The governor lashed out at government forces tasked with securing Krink and its environs for "withdrawing without any justification" as the main attacks began early Sunday.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA, quoting local sources, said that the police station in Krink was set on fire, the hospital attacked, and the market was "looted and burned."

"I am appalled," the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a statement Wednesday, demanding "impartial and independent" investigations into the attacks.

"I am concerned that this region continues to see repeated, serious incidents of intercommunal violence, with mass casualties," she said.

Heavy fighting initially erupted on Friday when at least eight people were killed in the Krink region, with gunmen attacking Massalit villages in retaliation for the killing of two comrades, according to the General Coordination for Refugees and Displaced in Darfur, an independent aid group.

The UN said more than 1,000 armed members of the Arab Rizeigat community then swept into the town.

Image courtesy: AFP