Sudan riots claim 130 lives after death of ex-rebel leader

AT least 130 people have been killed and about 350 wounded in Sudan in three days of violence after the death of former rebel leader and first Vice-President John Garang, the Sudanese Red Crescent said yesterday.

Residents reported that the streets of the capital Khartoum were quieter overnight than on previous nights, when gangs of armed vigilantes roamed the streets in spite of a curfew imposed since Monday to curb the clashes. The Sudanese Red Crescent’s director of disaster management said the death toll in the capital by Wednesday evening was 111, with six killed in Malakal and 13 in the southern town of Juba, where Mr Garang will be buried tomorrow.

“It was very quiet last night compared to the previous two nights,” Hadi Ali al-Obeid said.

Many of Khartoum’s commercial districts were in ruins, with shops burned and looted and cars wrecked following the clashes.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir called on state television for calm on Wednesday on the third day of rioting in the capital, the worst in many years. Over 300 people were wounded in Khartoum alone.

Mr Garang led the former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in a bitter struggle with the Islamist Khartoum-based government for more than two decades before signing a peace deal in January to end Africa’s longest civil war.

He returned to Khartoum to be sworn in as first vice president on July 9, and was working on forming a coalition government. The peace deal involved wealth and powersharing, democratic elections within three years and a southern referendum on secession from the north within six years.

Salva Kiir, Mr Garang’s deputy, has been appointed as the new head of the SPLM and will be sworn in as first vice president in coming weeks.

Although the suburbs and central Khartoum were quiet yesterday, millions of Sudanese who live in slums and makeshift camps around the capital were still suffering the effects of the violence. Many residents in the Mayo camp said they were too afraid to leave their homes, adding there were food shortages as movement between the capital and the camp had been cut off.

Police had surrounded the camp area to prevent rioters from there moving elsewhere.

International aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) France said it had moved into Mayo to set up trauma clinics in case further violence broke out before Mr Garang’s funeral. The camps are mainly populated by southern Sudanese and those who fled fighting in the western region of Darfur.

MSF said the government helped it bypass usual regulations due to the emergency situation, but other local non-governmental organisations said they were having trouble getting access to the camps and had been told it would take a week to arrange permits to set up clinics to treat the injured.

Ahmed Abdel Rahman of national aid agency SUDO said it was calling on the government urgently to waive the usual regulations and allow them immediate access to help feed and provide healthcare to those affected. Government officials were unavailable for immediate comment.