About 300 physically disabled stage march to protest against Sheik Yassin’s killing

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Mar 28, 2004 (AP) — About 300 physically disabled Sudanese, rolling on wheelchairs or walking with crutches, marched five city blocks Sunday in a demonstration against Israel’s assassination of Palestinian leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

“It is the time for holy war and sacrifice,” they chanted in front of the United Nations building in Sudan’s capital. “We seek justice from the United Nations.”

Sheik Yassin, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter-gunship on March 22, was a quadriplegic. A sports accident as a teenager left him paralyzed. He was being wheeled out of a mosque in Gaza when a missile killed him.

In a statement read out and handed over to the U.N. mission, the protesters said: “We say to the governments of the Arab and Muslim countries that we are fed up with your calls of condemnation and rejection … You have to take a united Arab-Islamic position” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Various Sudanese organizations for the blind, deaf and physically disabled organized the march, which began in the city center and ended at the U.N. building.