Three Sudanese protesters were killed on Thursday in clashes between police and demonstrators. The clashes were some of the most violent protests seen in and around Khartoum since anti-government demonstrations erupted across much of Sudan three weeks ago.
Activists say the three were killed in Omdurman, the twin city of the Sudanese capital, where several thousand protesters tried to march on Parliament to submit a note demanding that President Omar al-Bashir resign.
Sudan’s economy has stagnated for most of al-Bashir’s rule. He has also failed to unite or keep the peace in the religiously and ethnically diverse nation, losing three-quarters of Sudan’s oil wealth when the mainly animist and Christian south seceded in 2011 following a referendum. He is also wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
Bashir, who has been in power since he led a military coup in 1989, he has said those seeking to oust him can only do so through elections. He has insisted that the protests are part of a foreign plot to undermine Sudan’s “Islamic experience” and blamed the country’s worsening economic crisis on international sanctions.
Already among the longest-serving leaders in the region, al-Bashir hopes to win another term in office during elections next year. In a bid to placate popular anger over his economic policies, he has promised higher wages, continuing state subsidies on basic goods and more benefits for pensioners.
His promises have been dismissed by critics as untenable.
