Simon Maina
- (AFP/File)
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KHARTOUM (AFP) -
At least 14 people -- and possibly as many as 23 -- have been killed in clashes between supporters of a rebel group in eastern Sudan and security forces in Port Sudan, on the Red Sea.
A dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed and 100 people were arrested after the riots, which flared Friday during demonstrations by members of the Beja community of eastern Sudan who are seeking more powers and resources for their region.
Provincial governor Major General Hatim al-Wasilah al-Sammani said 14 people were killed and 16 wounded in the clashes, although witnesses told AFP that as many as 20 people were killed, including a child.
The Beja Congress, based in exile in neighbouring Eritrea, said government security forces killed 23 people and wounded more than 100 when they broke up a Beja demonstration in Port Sudan.
"The people were killed by security forces deployed by the government in Khartoum. Signs of bullets were found at houses," Salah Barqueen, a Beja Congress spokesman told AFP from Asmara by phone.
Demonstrations -- clamouring against the Beja's exclusion from recent peace agreements signed between Khartoum and southern rebels -- have spread to the towns of Kassala and Sinkat in eastern Sudan, he said.
The Beja Congress claims to be the sole representative of eastern Sudan, and withdrew from the opposition umbrella National Democratic Alliance on the grounds that its demands were not being taken into account in negotiations with Khartoum.
The Cairo-based NDA and the government have since forged a preliminary agreement and are expected to sign a final deal on February 12, hot on the heels of the January peace accord between Khartoum and southern rebels.
The provincial governor said the riots erupted despite an agreement between demonstrators and tribal leaders to halt their protests ahead of a meeting to discuss Beja demands.
"But, instead of coming for the meeting, they staged riots in which shops were looted and cars were burnt, and they engaged in clashes with the riot police and security men, who at first used batons and teargas to disperse the demonstrators and then they had to use firearms," Sammani said.
The governor said Beja Congress leaders had handed him a memorandum demanding that the government recognizes them as the sole representative of the people of eastern Sudan, as well as a fair share of power and resources. However Beja Congress officials later said that the Sudanese authorities had arrested 100 people in the wake of the riots and also expressed a willingness for recognition and dialogue.
Beja Congress Red Sea head Abdallah Mussa Abdallah told AFP that a delegation that arrived from Khartoum led by Agriculture Minister Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmed met with the leadership and discussed their demands.
Ahmed, who is also a senior official of the ruling National Congress, "told us that the government would sit down for talks with the Beja Congress and that the Naivasha accords (with southern rebels) related to power and wealth would be applied to the east," Abdallah said.
He said that the authorities arrested more than a hundred people held responsible for the riots and that a number of other people were missing and "we do not know whether they were killed or arrested."
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