Makkah: Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Al Bashir has arrived in Saudi Arabia to perform the Haj with other pilgrims, official media said yesterday, after dozens died in his country during recent protests.
Bashir “arrives in Jeddah to perform Haj,” the state Suna news agency reported.
About two million Muslims, a majority of them foreigners, poured out of the holy city of Makkah yesterday to begin the annual Haj, one of the five pillars of Islam that every capable Muslim must perform at least once.
Bashir’s September 23 cut in fuel subsidies sent thousands of people, many of them Khartoum-area poor, onto the streets to protest as petrol prices rose more than 60 percent. The demonstrations and their Arab Spring-inspired calls for the downfall of the regime were the worst urban unrest of Bashir’s 24-year rule. Amnesty International says security forces are believed to have killed more than 200 protesters, many of whom were shot in the head or chest.
AFP
