At least four schoolchildren and one adult were shot dead when security forces broke up a student protest in the Sudanese city of El-Obeid on Monday, campaigners said.
Gunfire rang out as teenagers rallied against fuel and bread shortages in the capital of North Kordofan State, residents said, at a time of heightened tension between opposition campaigners and Sudan’s military rulers.
The Forces of Freedom and Change coalition of opposition groups accused military and paramilitary forces of opening fire on the high school pupils and called for nationwide protests in response.
There was no immediate statement from Sudan’s ruling military council.
The acting governor of North Kordofan, Mohamed Khidr Mohamed Hamid, told Al-Arabiya TV there had been a “slight friction” between the protesters and security forces. He said he could not confirm who opened fire and a committee would investigate.
A building belonging to the Bank of Khartoum was set on fire during the unrest in El-Obeid, 400 km southwest of the capital Khartoum, residents said.
Videos circulating on social media purported to show pupils protesting outside El-Obeid’s main hospital against the killings and injuries.
Hundreds of teenagers in uniform chanted “blood for blood, we will not accept blood money” in the footage. Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the videos.
A member of a professional body of pharmacists linked to the opposition captured a video and photographs that he said showed a corpse and several wounded young men inside El-Obeid Teaching Hospital.
