3747 detained following riots of august

Aug 21, 2005 (Khartoum) — Khartoum police said Sunday that 3,747 people were detained following the deadly riots that broke out in the capital earlier this month after the death in a helicopter crash of southern leader John Garang.

“The current police crackdowns are not targeting a certain ethnic or religious group but are being launched in accordance with confirmed information,” Khartoum criminal police chief Kamal Eddin Jaafar said.

Those rounded up were predominantly from Khartoum’s community of southern Sudanese. Jaafar did not say how many were still behind bars but said a large proportion had already been tried.

The Sudanese Group for Human Rights had warned earlier of a number of arbitrary arrests during the crackdown that followed the violence sparked by southerners angry at Garang’s death, which they blamed on the government.

The sentences handed out ranged from fines, or flogging to prison terms.

The riots by the mainly black Christian southerners also triggered a violent backlash by Arab Muslims in Khartoum and elsewhere that threatened to wreck the country’s fledgling north-south peace deal.

Major General Jaafar also told reporters that a total of 90 deaths and close to 1,000 serious injuries had been reported at police stations in the capital. Estimates put the Khartoum death toll at around 110.

He said a total of 15.5 billion Sudanese pounds (6.2 million dollars) had been looted during the riots that broke out two days after the July 30 crash that killed Garang, who was also first vice president.

An international team investigating the circumstances of the crash has sent the helicopter’s black box flight recorders to Russia for analysis.

AFP/ST