From reuters مذبحـة فى بورتســودان

Sudanese Police Kill Up to 20 Protesters

Sat Jan 29, 2005 09:46 AM ET

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudanese police killed up to 20 people and injured 40 on
Saturday when they opened fire on a crowd of easterners demonstrating in the
Red Sea city of Port Sudan, a local political leader said.
A hospital source in the city said 17 people were killed and 20 injured when
police opened fire on a protest march. An official source said the death toll
was lower.

Abdullah Moussa Abdullah, secretary-general of the Beja Congress in Red Sea
state, told Reuters by telephone from Port Sudan that he had seen 17 bodies in
the hospital morgue and had the names of three other people killed.

Moussa said he was present in the morning when some 300 to 400 members of the
Beja ethnic group gathered to prepare for a march to demand that the Khartoum
government start negotiations with the Beja on sharing power and the
country's resources.

"There was a special police unit that appeared and just opened fire at them
before they even moved. They fired at their ######### and bodies, not even in the
air," he said. Three children were among those killed, he added.

The source at the hospital said all of the wounds were from bullets. "About
17 were killed and around 20 injured," added the source, who declined to be
named.

Three days ago members of eastern tribes, mostly the Beja, presented a list
of demands to the Red Sea state governor, including wealth and power sharing.
They warned they would take unspecified actions if the demands were not met
within 72 hours.

"This time was up today and they started a march toward the Wali's
(governor's) office," the hospital source said, adding the police stopped the march
before it got very far.

The source said seven soldiers were injured by stones, but only civilians
sustained gunshot wounds.

Moussa said the Beja Congress, a local ethnic-based party with a military
wing, had asked the governor of Red Sea state to withdraw security forces from
residential areas and the governor had complied. "It is relatively calm now," he
added.

The interior ministry declined to comment on the numbers killed but said in a
statement: "A number of civilians tried to create a state of chaos in the
town ... and the police forces moved to challenge them."

Moussa said the regional security committee has ordered a curfew throughout
the city with effect from 6 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Saturday until 6 a.m. (0300 GMT)
on Sunday.

The minister of finance in Port Sudan, Ali Mahmoud, told Reuters by telephone
that a number of the demonstrators this morning started #####ng shops and the
police had intervened.

"Some were killed but not as many as 17," he said. He said he did not know of
shots fired or how the people were killed.

"There were some little clashes between the police and those making chaos,"
he said.

One police official in Port Sudan said many were killed and injured by gun
shots. "There was shooting in the center of the town at the demonstration," the
official said on condition of anonymity.

The Beja Congress, like other Sudanese opposition groups, accuses the
Khartoum government of neglecting the remote regions of the country in favor of the
center, which is the powerbase of the traditional political elite.

They see the agreement this month between the government and the southern
rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement as a model for their own
regions. The agreement gives the southerners a share of their region's oil revenues.

The World Food Program says some areas of eastern Sudan, where the Beja live,
have higher malnutrition rates than the crisis-hit western Darfur region.

The Beja Congress has launched limited military operations in the east, but
has made little impact on Khartoum. (Additional reporting by Jonathan Wright in
Cairo)