Anti-government riots continue

Violent clashes continued on Tuesday when police used batons, tear gas and warning shots to disperse anti-government protestors in two demonstrations in east and west Sudan.

Police in the western town of Nyali charged at students who had gathered to protest the arrest of 17 members of the opposition, AFP reported. Those arrested including members of the Popular National Congress accused of participating in other protests. In the eastern town of al-Qadarif, State Governor Mubarak Munir Haju told the local ‘As-Sahafa Ad-Dawli’ daily that security forces were forced to fire into the air in an effort to prevent rioting. The report said those arrested were in possession of documents with plans to agitate “subversive operations and riots” in strategic parts of the town.

This was the fifth violent protest in a week in which police have used tear gas to disperse crowds. Meanwhile, in a separate report on Sudanese state-run television on Tuesday, Sudanese government spokesman Ghazi Salah al-Din Atabani, said “the reasons given to justify these destructive incidents expressed the magnitude of contradictions among the group that implemented it”. It added there had been “no random arrests and those arrested would face criminal and not political charges.”