Tear gas fired at Sudan protests as death toll from clashes rises

Police fired tear gas in Sudan’s capital Khartoum yesterday against hundreds of anti-coup protesters who also called attention to increasingly deadly clashes in the country’s south.
The capital has been the scene of near-weekly protests since army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan launched a power grab in October last year that derailed a transition to civilian rule.
The coup saw key donors pull the plug on funding, exacerbating a long-running economic crisis and feeding into inter-communal unrest in remote parts of the country.
Blue Nile state, bordering Ethiopia, is the latest crucible of tribal clashes — and yesterday, authorities there raised the death toll to 60, from 33 the previous day, in fighting that began nearly a week ago.
“Al-Damazin is bleeding,” read a sign held up by a Khartoum protester, referring to the provincial capital of Blue Nile.
Other demonstrators in the capital chanted: “Sudan is one nation” and “No to racism, no to tribalism.”
In the city of Wad Madani, some 200 kilometres south of Khartoum, protesters diverted their demonstration to the local hospital to “donate blood to our brothers wounded in tribal clashes in Blue Nile”, protest organiser Ammar Mohamed said.
The clashes in Blue Nile state, between the tribes, first erupted last Monday.
The violence came after one tribe rejected another’s request to create a “civil authority to supervise access to land”, a prominent tribe member had said on condition of anonymity.
But a senior member of the Bertis had said the tribe was responding to a “violation” of its lands by the Hawsas.
Dozens of Hawsas blocked the western entrance to the western city of Kassala with burning tyres and stones “in solidarity with our people in the (Blue) Nile, to stop their murder and displacement”, said protester Mohamed Abkar.
The revised death toll of 60 was provided by Blue Nile health minister Jamal Nasser, who also said that 163 people have been wounded.
“Violence is never a solution,” Unicef tweeted yesterday, in a country where the UN estimates half the population will be pushed into extreme hunger by September.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, the main armed faction in Blue Nile, denied yesterday any involvement in the clashes.
Pro-democracy demonstrators accuse Sudan’s military leadership and ex-rebel leaders who signed a 2020 peace deal of exacerbating ethnic tensions in Blue Nile for personal gain.
Security forces had erected road blocks on bridges crossing the Nile linking Khartoum to its suburbs, AFP reporters said, to deter protesters who vowed to take to the streets in large numbers to protest against Burhan.
Sudan’s latest coup sparked regular protests and an ongoing crackdown by security forces that has killed at least 114, according to pro-democracy medics.
Nine were killed on June 30, the medics said, when tens of thousands gathered against the military.