10 January 2019•Update: 10 January 2019
KHARTOUM
At least three protestors were killed and a number of others wounded in Omdurman, Sudan’s second largest city, police announced late Wednesday.
In a statement, police spokesman Hashim Abdel-Rahim said the authorities had received reports of three deaths and an as-yet-unspecified number of injured.
“The incidents are being investigated under the supervision of state prosecutors,” Sudan’s state-run SUNA news agency quoted Abdel-Rahim as saying.
According to the spokesman, violent protesters and rioters in Omdurman were dispersed with teargas “in line with the law”.
While Abdel-Rahim did not say how exactly the three protesters had lost their lives, a medical source told Anadolu Agency that at least two had been killed by live ammunition.
The circumstances of the third fatality remain unclear.
Earlier Wednesday, the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors, a local NGO, stated that at least nine people had been injured in Wednesday’s protests in Omdurman.
Demonstrations resumed in Omdurman on Wednesday -- and in capital Khartoum -- shortly after President Omar al-Bashir addressed the nation in a televised speech.
According to witnesses, police used teargas -- along with live ammunition in some cases -- to disperse the crowds.
Sudan has been rocked by protests since mid-December. Demonstrators decry the government’s apparent inability to rein in rampant inflation and acute commodity shortages.
The authorities say at least 22 people have been killed in the unrest.
Opposition groups, for their part, put the death toll at closer to 40.
