Sudan riot police on standby after clashes

Khartoum: Sudanese riot police were on standby around a Khartoum bus terminal Monday, a day after they clashed there with hundreds of protesters who made Arab Spring-inspired demands for the overthrow of the government.

A reporter saw three large caged trucks carrying police parked beside the main road through the bustling terminal and market area in the city’s west end.

Two smaller trucks with more crowd control officers perched on a bridge overlooking the area.

Several plainclothes security agents were seen in the back of a pickup truck.

The main terminal road was charred from a fire which burned during Sunday’s unrest when, a reporter said, six people were injured, a bus was torched, and police fired tear gas.

Official radio said 47 people were detained.

The protesters marched from nearby universities to show support for four dead students, originally from the conflict-plagued Darfur region, who died last week following an alleged crackdown on a tuition protest at Gezira University south of Khartoum.

Their deaths have prompted the largest outpouring of student discontent since anti-regime protests in June and July.

Those earlier demonstrations began at the University of Khartoum over high inflation and then spread to involve scattered protests throughout the country, calling for the fall of the 23-year regime of President Omar Al Bashir.

They petered out following a security clampdown.

In 1964, the death of student activist Ahmed Al Qureshi sparked the “October Revolution” which ended the military regime then in power after tens of thousands protested.