At least 29 people killed in protests in Sudan

At least 29 people have been killed in protests in Khartoum over fuel subsidy cuts, police said yesterday, and more clashes broke out in Khartoum in the worst unrest seen in Sudan’s central regions for years.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who came to power in a 1989 coup, has been spared the sort of Arab Spring uprising that unseated autocratic rulers in states from Tunisia to Yemen since 2011, but anger has risen over rising inflation and corruption.

A United Nations official told Reuters that Mr Bashir, who also faces an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, would not be going to New York for the ongoing meeting of the UN General Assembly.

Sudan’s foreign ministry denied that Mr Bashir had decided not to attend , saying his request for a visa was still pending at the US embassy.

A total of 29 people, civilians and police officers, were killed yesterday, police said in the first official death toll.

Activists put the death toll much higher, in the dozens. A medical source at a hospital in Khartoum’s twin-city Omdurman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were 27 bodies at his hospital alone.

Fresh clashes broke out in the evening between police and hundreds of protesters, witnesses said. – (Reuters)