Sudanese police arrest 50 suspects in refugee camp clashes

KHARTOUM, Sudan, May 24, 2005 (AP) — Thousands of police descended on a camp for displaced people Tuesday to make arrests in connection with deadly clashes last week between police and residents resisting being moved.

The bodies of police officers await burial in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, May 19, 2005. Fourteen policemen and three civilians were killed when citizens resisted relocation attempts and attacked a police station in a south Khartoum neighborhood, a government official said Wednesday. (AP).

State Minister of Interior Ahmed Mohamed Haroon told reporters 50 camp residents were arrested in an operation that began early Tuesday in connection with last week’s violence, which left 14 policemen and three civilians dead. He said six others had been arrested earlier.

Haroon added plans to move residents from the camp just south of Khartoum, which had been criticized by the U.N., would “be implemented immediately, without delay.”

“Those who hurriedly proceeded to condemn the incident have their own vested interest,” he charged.

“But this is an isolated incident and it will never stop the state from implementing its policy and plans of relocations,” Haroon said after taking reporters on a tour of the area.

Tuesday’s operation involved some 6,000 regular police officers and a similar number of riot police armed with rifles, batons, tear gas and machine guns. The police later showed scores of axes, sticks, knives and other traditional weapons they said they had seized in the camp.

The suspects arrested Tuesday were paraded before reporters in the remains of a police station burned during last week’s violence. It wasn’t immediately clear what charges they would face.

Abdul Haleem Mutaafi, the governor of Khartoum state, has said he planned to remove about 2,000 people who had settled in the camp from war zones in Sudan ‘s south and west and send them elsewhere.

Mutaafi has accused an unnamed opposition political party of inciting camp residents by spreading rumors that even those with legal plots of land would be forced to move.

Police who had gone to the area last Wednesday to implement the relocation were met by a huge crowd and ordered to return to the station.

The crowd, officials said, attacked a passing police van transporting inmates, killing one policeman and snatching two rifles. The crowd then moved to a police station about a kilometer away, where they burned down the whole building, killing 13 policemen, officials said.

The U.N. had expressed deep concern about the violence and said it had received reports that security forces had opened fire on the crowd.

Police denied using their weapons, saying the three civilians died in the crush when police tried to push the crowd away from the police station.