Sudan says to grant demands of eastern tribe

By Opheera McDoom

PORT SUDAN, Sudan, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Sudan on Monday said it would grant the demands of a poor eastern tribe for more wealth and power, two days after security forces killed 18 people at a march in the eastern city of Port Sudan.

Red Sea state governor Hatim al-Wasiyla told Reuters the government would meet the Beja tribe’s demands, including the appointment of a governor from the region, after April when a peace deal to end more than two decades of civil war in Sudan’s south comes into force.

The deal was signed earlier this month and gives wider federal powers to Sudan’s 26 states.

“All these demands are in the peace deal and will be implemented after April,” Wasiyla said. “They know that so there was no need for them to turn to violence,” he added.

Port Sudan’s police chief Khalafallah Mohamedein said there was widespread looting and riots in Port Sudan on Friday night and the police had information the marchers would cause trouble on Saturday.

“It was clear that they had light weapons — knives and other things,” he told Reuters. “They attacked the forces so they were forced to retaliate and opened fire.”

Surviving demonstrators said they were unarmed and were not behind looting which had burnt out at least two shops and robbed several others on Friday. The store owners did not know who was behind the looting either.

Wasiyla said a committee would be formed to see if excessive force had been used against the demonstrators on Saturday, when at least 18 were killed and more than 40 people were wounded.

He denied witness reports that security forces had gone on the rampage in ethnic Beja parts of Port Sudan, breaking into homes after the march ended. Many of the wounded said they were in their homes when they were shot.

A Reuters witness saw dozens of bullet holes, spent bullet cartridges and bloodstained beds where people had been shot in several homes in the Beja area of the city, near where demonstrators had gathered for the march.

Beja residents of Port Sudan said security forces had carried out arrests, opened fire and broken into homes at a distance of up to 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) from the site of the march on Saturday.

“They were shouting: ‘Beja where are you, come out come out — you are animals’,” said Tuhada Ibrahim. “We did not come out and they broke into our houses and shot everything,” she said, holding five empty bullet shells she took from her home.

Mohamed Mohamed Adam said six soldiers broke into their house, beat those inside and shot his cousin in his bed. “I feel sick that this has happened. They were shouting insults at us,” he said.

Residents showed a Reuters witness what appeared to be a small unexploded device embedded in the roof of a house. They said security forces had fired similar devices into the houses.

Wasiyla also said a Beja rebel group, which is fighting against what it says is Khartoum’s neglect of the region, clashed with government forces in an area near Sudan’s eastern border with Eritrea on Saturday and Sunday. “(The rebels) came from across the Eritrean border,” he said.