Port Sudan residents continue protests against water crisis

On Sunday, popular protests against drinking water shortages in Port Sudan, capital of Red Sea state, continued for the sixth day in a row.

The protests continued in El Sawra district, Block 13, an activist told Radio Dabanga from Port Sudan.

On Saturday, security forces intervened during vigils in various neighbourhoods. “The arrested dozens of people, among them a number of minors,” he said.

The source reported that the authorities earlier dismissed the director of the Red Sea Water Corporation. “Yet the new director did not manage to restore the drinking water supply which is suffering from outages for years.”

In an open memorandum, a group of eastern Sudanese civil society organisations called on the governor of the Red Sea state to open an investigation into the spending of funds allocated for the maintenance and extension of the drinking water supply system in the state.

“The Nile Bank provided SDG 102 billion ($ 363,000*) and the Emaar El Sharg a sum of SDG 75 million,” the source stated.

The civil society group called on the governor to change the city’s administrative staff in order to resolve “the embezzlement problem”.

They as well appealed to the police to exercise restraint in dealing with the protesters, “as it is the people’s constitutional right to assemble and demonstrate peacefully”, and not allow policemen to infiltrate the protests.

* Based on the indicative US Dollar rate quoted by the Central Bank of Sudan