Ex-fighters’ protest in Port Sudan ends

One former combatant of the Beja Congress who participated in a sit-in in front of the Ministry of Finance in Port Sudan on Wednesday afternoon, was interrogated for a couple of hours. A fight between students resulted in the injury of two in Port Sudan.

Another ex-combatant told Radio Dabanga that security agents took him to the headquarters of the Ministry of Finance in Red Sea state, where he was interrogated until his release at midnight.

The ex-combatant, Hassan Kunna, added that dozens of Beja Congress members held the sit-in in protest against the authorities’ failure to offer the basic requirements for small-enterprise projects.

Their demonstration was stopped at 2pm on Thursday when a number of notables and state organisations pledged to oblige the government to hand over the respective projects on time.

On Wednesday, ex-Beja Congress fighter Haroun Idris told Radio Dabanga from the sit-in site at the Ministry that the Red Sea State government agreed in September last year to provide small-scale production projects to 380 demobilised combatants. The projects would be handed to the former fighters on 16 March.

The Beja fighters were part of the Eastern Front rebel alliance before it signed for demobilisation in the Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement of 2006.

Students attacked

A speech by students in Port Sudan resulted in a fight between students and the injury of several of them earlier this week.

A student told Radio Dabanga that a group of students who support the ruling National Congress Party attacked a speaker and the crowd at a speech that was held at the Faculty of Education, University of Red Sea. The association of Unionist students delivered the speech about the university's threat to ban them from doing political activities.

Abdallah Ibrahim Hashem and a student named Faiz of the Faculty of Education, and a woman student at the faculties' complex sustained injuries, he said.

Photo of the sit-in by students in Port Sudan (RD)

The faculty students have started a sit-in on Tuesday, demanding the university to address the deteriorating academic environment and withdraw its decision to raise of tuition fees, the student added.