KHARTOUM: Sudanese police fired tear gas yesterday when mourners called for “revolution” following the funeral of a student allegedly gunned down by security forces at a protest against violence in Darfur.
The incident came after about 1,000 mourners had buried Ali Abaker Mussa Idris in a south Khartoum cemetery.
A reporter said police resorted to tear gas as the angry crowd, shouting anti-government slogans, began moving out of the burial ground.
The public anger is the first major showing of discontent since dozens of people were gunned down in anti-regime protests last September.
Idris, a third-year economics student, died in hospital from gunshot wounds “after security forces used tear gas and opened fire with live ammunition” at the University of Khartoum demonstration on Tuesday, Amnesty International said.
In a statement on the Interior Ministry website, police did not say what killed the student. They said officers had fired only tear gas.
Many of those who attended Idris’s funeral were also students.
“Peace, freedom, justice!” they shouted before the gas sent them scattering into surrounding streets of the neighbourhood near a major bus station.
“Revolution is the people’s choice!” they called, after earlier shouting for the overthrow of President Omar Hassan Al Bashir’s 25-year-old regime.
About 12 truckloads of riot police and plainclothes security agents had been stationed around the cemetery.
Idris was killed when about 300 students, many of them from Darfur, protested at the university on Tuesday.
University authorities announced an indefinite closure of the campus “to protect the lives and property” after the student’s death.
Blue riot police trucks were stationed around the colonial-era university yesterday, including in front of the main entrance gates.
AFP
