Violence broke out for a second day in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Tuesday after a morning of tense calm, a day after 36 people were killed in furious riots sparked by the death of Sudanese vice-president and former southern rebel leader John Garang.
In some neighbourhoods heavily populated by southerners on the outskirts of the city, outsiders were attacking people in the streets and raiding homes, said William Ezekiel, managing editor of the Khartoum Monitor. He said at least two people in southern Khartoum were shot and killed.
”The Arabs are attacking them, entering their houses and looking for southerners,” said Ezekiel, whose newspaper focuses largely on southern issues.
He said the northerners were breaking into houses and trying ”to dismantle anything southern”.
”It’s a reaction to the reaction from yesterday,” Ezekiel said. ”Where is the government? Where are the police?”
A senior United Nations official in Khartoum said angry southerners from the displaced people’s camps outside the capital were converging on the area of Omdurman. He said a Muslim imam was killed.
”The situation is turning religious and that will be even more dangerous,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the press.
The reports of deaths on Tuesday could not be independently confirmed.
The government renewed the 12-hour curfew of the night before, to begin at 6pm local time. By 3.30pm, downtown streets were already practically empty. An occasional siren could be heard.
Tuesday’s violence and tension followed riots the day before, when grief-stricken supporters of Garang rampaged in Khartoum, burning cars and chasing people with stones, some accusing the government of killing Garang. The government responded with riot police and set a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
Officials said 36 people were killed and approximately 300 more injured in Monday’s clashes. No information was available on how many of those killed were security forces and protesters.
Darren Hayward, a South African events manager visiting Khartoum on business, told the Mail & Guardian Online on Tuesday that he and his colleagues were restricted to their hotel on Monday.
”We went on to the roof and there was black smoke billowing out from fires all around the hotel, like petrol fires,” he said.
Earlier on Monday, he said, ”hundreds and hundreds” of people were walking up and down in Khartoum’s streets.
Plenty of people were leaving town, and a taxi driver told him the ”southerners were causing problems”.
Funeral arranged
Garang died on Saturday along with 13 other people in a helicopter crash near the Sudanese-Ugandan border. The government and Garang’s own group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), ruled out foul play in his death.
Three days of national mourning were declared.
Garang will be buried on Saturday in Juba, the planned capital of the future autonomous government of the country’s southern region, SPLM spokesperson Yasir Arman said in neighbouring Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.
Garang’s body is lying at New Site, one of his former bases in southern Sudan. Arman said Garang’s body will be taken to key towns in southern Sudan to allow his supporters to pay their last respects before the state funeral in Juba, which he said will be attended by President Omar al-Bashir and other regional leaders and international representatives.
Garang, from southern Sudan, became the country’s first vice-president last month as part of the United States-backed peace deal that ended a two-decade-long civil war between his rebel force and the army of Sudan’s Islamic-oriented government based in Khartoum.
The charismatic Garang was hailed for helping seal the peace deal, particularly across southern Sudan and among the several million southern refugees living in Khartoum.
The SPLM has named Garang’s long-time deputy, Salva Kiir Mayardit, to succeed him as head of the movement and president of south Sudan. Arman said Kiir will take over the post of first vice-president, and that government representatives and SPLM officials were meeting to plan the inauguration.
”The leadership decided to expedite the implementation of the agreement. What took place should add impetus to move forward toward peace. This was the wish of Dr Garang, his commitment and conviction,” Arman said.
One of Kiir’s immediate tasks will be to continue working with al-Bashir and Sudan’s second vice-president to form a Cabinet by August 9.
Two senior US State Department officials are expected to arrive in neighbouring Kenya soon before arranging to travel to Sudan to tell leaders in Khartoum and southern Sudan that Garang’s death should not slow the momentum toward a comprehensive peace deal.
Garang was the dominant voice of the south since 1983. A colonel in Sudan’s army, he was sent south to quell a rebellion but deserted to form a rebel movement that fought the Muslim government in Khartoum for a share of wealth and political power for the mostly Christian and animist south. More than two million people died in the conflict.
The deal and Garang’s ascension to the national unity government were signs of hope for others who feel marginalised in Sudan. Many in the east and west, fighting their own battles with Khartoum, considered Garang an advocate. — Sapa-AP