Sudan holds Darfur rebel supporters after protest
September 21, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese authorities have detained several supporters of a Darfur rebel leader after clashes with police in Khartoum, the interior ministry said.
Supporters of Abdelwahid al-Nur, the founder of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), took to the streets on Thursday to back his conditional refusal to attend peace talks scheduled with the government next month.
“The police foiled an attempt to create disorder and arrested some of them (the protesters),” Khartoum State Deputy Police Commissioner Mohamed Nejuib al-Tayeb said in a statement seen by Reuters on Friday.
He said a group of about 20 protesters had tried to set fire to a fuel tanker that was offloading at a nearby gas station.
“Six people sustained various injuries in the incident,” he said without elaboration.
One of the protesters, Mohamed Babikir, told Reuters the demonstration was peaceful and aimed at supporting Nur’s conditions for attending next month’s peace talks in Libya to end the 4-1/2-year conflict in Darfur.
Nur has said he will refuse to attend peace talks before the deployment of 26,000 U.N. and African Union peacekeepers, the disarmament of government-backed militias and guarantees of security across the region.
International experts estimate 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced in ethnic and political conflict in Darfur since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of neglecting the region.
The Sudanese government says 9,000 people have died.
(Reuters)