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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Security forces fire teargas, round up protesters in central Khartoum

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Khartoum: Security forces fired teargas to disperse hundreds of protesters close to the Sudan’s presidential palace on Thursday, before plainclothes officers armed with plastic piping rounded up around 30 people, witnesses said.


Police then chased activists through side streets as smaller rallies broke out across downtown Khartoum.


Demonstrators chanted “Peaceful, peaceful against the thieves” and “Down, that’s it!” — their central demand for President Omar al Bashir to step down. The detained protesters, most of them young men and women, were driven away in pickup trucks, witnesses said.


A police spokesman could not be reached for comment.


Union members, students, opposition activists and others, frustrated with economic hardships, have held near daily protests since December 19, in the most sustained challenge to Bashir’s three decades in power.


The president and his ruling National Congress Party have shown no sign of bowing to those demands and have blamed the unrest on unnamed foreign powers. He and senior officials have used more conciliatory language in recent weeks, promising to release detained demonstrators.


But activists say hundreds remain in detention.


Deadly protests that erupted in Sudan on December 19 over a decision to triple the price of bread have spread across the country and escalated into calls for President Omar al Bashir to step down after 30 years of iron-fisted rule.


On Thursday, hundreds of protesters chanting “freedom, peace, justice,” the rallying cry of the campaign, demonstrated in central Khartoum but were quickly confronted by riot police with tear gas, witnesses said.


“Police have arrested many young men and women downtown,” a witness said without revealing his name for security reasons.


Crowds of people living in a camp for the displaced in conflict-wracked Darfur also staged a rally inside the camp, residents said.


“The residents of camp Zam Zam, mostly young men and women, are chanting anti-government slogans in the centre of the camp,” Mohamed Issa, a resident of the camp, said by telephone. — AFP


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