Cars burn in front of a building during protests over fuel subsidy cuts in Khartoum.
KHARTOUM: Fresh protests broke out in Sudan yesterday as medical officials said 29 people were killed in three days of rioting sparked by a government decision to scrap subsidies on fuel.
The escalating protests are the largest in Sudan since President Omar Al Bashir, whose foreign ministry denied he has called off a visit to the United Nations, seized power in 1989.
Protests called for by activists took off from Inqaz district south of Khartoum, where some 3,000 people marched on the main road and hurled stones at passing-by cars, witnesses said.
Police responded by firing tear gas and rubber bullets, they said. No casualties were yet reported.
Earlier yesterday, a hospital source in Khartoum’s twin city Omdurman said that “we have received the bodies of 21 people” since the protests began on Monday, adding that all were “civilians”.
Another eight people were killed in other regions, witnesses and families said.
Calls for fresh protests in Khartoum yesterday came as anti-riot forces deployed since the early morning hours at major road intersections, a correspondent said.
Riots broke out in several districts of the capital on Wednesday, some near the city centre, and public transport ground to a halt.
The demonstrations continued late into the night and spread to new neighbourhoods.
“Freedom, freedom,” and “The people want the fall of the regime,” chanted the protesters, many of them students.
“We came out, we came out against those who have stolen our sweat,” they chanted, according to a video uploaded on YouTube on Wednesday.
The education authorities have announced the closure of schools until Monday.
The Internet remained cut yesterday, users said, but it was still not known if the reason was a technical failure or a deliberate move by authorities.
The US embassy called on its citizens to avoid flashpoint areas, saying it had received “regrettable” reports of casualties and warning Americans of the danger of further protests.
Bashir had been scheduled to speak to world leaders yesterday, but a UN spokesman, Jerome Bernard, said that Foreign Minister Ali Karti would now address the assembly instead.
The foreign ministry denied the report and urged Washington to “respect its obligations and issue visas to... Bashir and the delegation accompanying him to New York.”
Under international accords, the United States cannot refuse a visa to Bashir, who faces an international arrest warrant, but it could detain him on arrival.
The International Criminal Court has urged US authorities to arrest Bashir, who is wanted by the court in The Hague on 10 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the Darfur conflict.
AFP
