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PROTESTS OVER THE rising cost of bread have claimed 22 lives in Sudan this week, the country’s opposition leader Sadiq al-Mahdi said today, although officials gave a lower death toll.
A government decision to raise the price of a loaf of bread from one Sudanese pound to three (from about two to five cent) sparked demonstrations across the country on Wednesday.
The protests first erupted in the eastern city of Atbara before spreading to Al-Qadarif, also in eastern Sudan, and then to the capital Khartoum and twin city Omdurman and other areas.
Two demonstrators were killed in Atbara and six others in Al-Qadarif, officials said on Thursday, as protesters torched offices of the ruling National Congress Party of President Omar al-Bashir.
But according to Mahdi “22 people were martyred and several others wounded”.
Speaking to reporters in Omdurman, on the west bank of the Nile, Mahdi said the protest movement “is legal and was launched because of the deteriorating situation in Sudan”.
He said that demonstrations will continue to rock Sudan.
Government spokesman Bashar Jumaa on Friday warned that authorities “will not be lenient” with those who set state buildings on fire or cause other damage to public property.
It was Mahdi’s first news conference since he returned to Sudan on Wednesday after almost a year in exile.
A fixture of Sudanese politics since the 1960s, Mahdi was prime minister from 1966 to 1967 and again from 1986 to 1989.
His government was the last one to be democratically elected in Sudan, before it was toppled by a 1989 coup launched by Bashir.
Sudan has been facing a mounting economic crisis over the past year.
The cost of some commodities has more than doubled, inflation is running at close to 70 percent and the pound has plunged in value.
Shortages have been reported for the past three weeks across several cities, including Khartoum.
Protests broke out in January over the rising cost of food, but they were soon brought under control with the arrest of opposition leaders and activists.
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Do we even realize how lucky we are demonstrations over the price as basic as bread
@Margaret Mcgarry: puts France and their yellow vests in perspective…
@James Brady: —AND ALSO” THE STROKESTOWN AFFAIR!!”
Surely the headline should be 22 people brown bread?
@Robert Grant: ??
@Robert Grant: I agree. They’re toast.
@⚡ Seánie ⚡: if Trump was involved you would all be full of faux outrage
what on earth makes it ok to jibe over the deaths of humans who where seeking a simple human sustenance 30,000 years in existence…
Gandhi:There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
Today’s bread prices today, as Achmed Brennan would say !
“Riots over bread prices” Cartainly puts things into perspective.
The EU is directly responsible for this due to converting agricultural land into forestry which in turn reduced grain and veg surpluses forcing the prices up for all the markets
@George O Neill: What absolute tripe, the Sudanese are hardly importing bread and grain from the EU.
@George O Neill: LOL
@Kilian Dunne: The EU sold it’s surplus food stuff off to African countries for many years before they decided to cut production
@George O Neill: A lot of things affect the price of grain, increasing population and increasing meat consumption are two of the biggest. Throw in more droughts because of climate change and the prices will be extremely volatile, when they rise even a little it pushes millions below the poverty line.
What a horrific place to live. I read James Patterson’s book ‘Woman of God’ recently and it gives a slight insight to the lives of Sudan’s and the medical teams who work there. I admire anyone who volunteers to work in these countries. They don’t have a camera crew and security detail like George Clooney. Human rights are nonexistent there. The medic teams basically stitch up whom they can, only to be sent out to be tortured, raped, or shot. These medics should get the New Year ‘Time’ front issue. Very brave and committed people. For the poor unfortunates living there, we can only hope for them and find a way to go there and help them.
Those yellow vests should take note, considering France’s history in Africa.
‘Sold’ by Zana Muhsen
Two teenagers sold in to marriages that they did not consent to. Yemen, a God awful place for women and children.
It’s the yeast that’s rising it
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