Three dead in Sudan camp riot – police
KHARTOUM, March 18 (Reuters) – At least three people were killed and about 18 people injured in a riot which witnesses said on Thursday was sparked by a government attempt to remove people from an informal camp for internal refugees.
A police statement said a man and two women were killed during the riot on Wednesday at the camp at Mayo, about 20 km (12 miles) south of the centre of Khartoum, for those displaced by conflict in the west of Sudan.
Eyewitnesses said police fired tear gas to disperse large crowds of people who mobilised to protect students who have been providing food and sanitation services to the displaced.
They said the situation in the camp was quiet but tense on Thursday with a heavy police presence. The witnesses said at least three police and 15 civilians were injured.
A police officer on the scene, who asked not to be named, also said two police men were killed. But an Interior Ministry official said there were no police deaths and the police statement only said some police were injured.
The statement said a group of displaced people attacked a police station and police responded by trying to disperse the crowd.
“But they (the rioters) regrouped and stormed the camp which created a state of chaos as a result of which the rioters used hand weapons which led to the death of three citizens, a man and two women,” the statement said without describing the weapons.
The witnesses said rioters had used sticks and stones.
Ezzeddin Marbua, head of the Jabal Marra Students Union, said police had gone to the Mayo camp to remove a group of about 40 students who have been trying to protect and assist the displaced people.
More than 2,300 people from Darfur have moved to the area since late February after fleeing their villages in the west, where rebels have been fighting government troops and their militia allies for more than a year.
Roger Winter, assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, told a congressional committee in Washington last week Sudanese authorities were restricting humanitarian assistance to the displaced.
“Even those who have mobilised assistance to help them have been threatened by Government of Sudan officials and told not to report the ‘untrue’ stories they heard from the displaced,” he told the Africa subcommittee of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee.