{"id":29432,"date":"2019-01-16T18:24:05","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T18:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29432"},"modified":"2019-01-16T18:24:05","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T18:24:05","slug":"sudan-police-fire-teargas-at-protesters-in-kassala-witnesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29432","title":{"rendered":"Sudan police fire teargas at protesters in Kassala: Witnesses"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sudan<\/a> police have fired teargas at anti-government protesters in the eastern city of Kassala, according to eyewitnesses, as one of the biggest protests against President Omar al-Bashir’s three-decade rule entered its fourth week.<\/p>\n

It was the first time protesters took to the streets in Kassala, located near Sudan’s border with Eritrea<\/a>, since massive anti-government demonstrations started in December in which at least 24 people have died.<\/p>\n

Eyewitnesses told AFP news agency protesters shouted “freedom, justice and peace”, after which they were confronted by police officers who fired teargas at them.<\/p>\n

Shortly before the anti-government crowd took to the streets, followers of President Bashir held a rally in the city located on the bank of Gash river.<\/p>\n

On January 7, Bashir’s\u00a0supporters\u00a0rallied in Kassala, the first such pro-government rally which was followed days later by another in the capital, Khartoum.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since December 19, Sudan has seen several large-scale protests in most major cities and towns in the Horn of Africa country, which is a key transit point on the migrant route to Europe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since it is located close to Eritrea, many people trying to make the dangerous journey from Eritrea to Europe pass through Kassala and then travel across Sudan to Libya<\/a> or Egypt<\/a>, from where they cross the Mediterranean to Europe.<\/p>\n

Demonstrations initially erupted in the northeastern town of Atbara after the government raised the price of bread, but then quickly flared to other regions before spreading to Khartoum.<\/p>\n

March on the presidential palace\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

More than 800 people have been arrested since the unrest began, said officials, insisting that the situation has now stabilised even as protests have continued.<\/p>\n

Protest organisers have called for a march on the presidential palace in Khartoum on Thursday, along with simultaneous demonstrations in several cities, including Port Sudan, Gadaref and Madani.<\/p>\n

They are demanding the removal of Bashir<\/a>, the 74-year-old general-turned-politician, who has ruled the north African country since 1989.<\/p>\n

An embattled Bashir has promised economic development but has refused to step down. Instead, he has called on opposition leaders to wait until the elections scheduled to be held in 2020.<\/p>\n

Sudan’s ruling party has pressed ahead with plans to change the constitution, so Bashir can stay in office beyond his present term, which ends in 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sudan police have fired teargas at anti-government protesters in the eastern city of Kassala, according to eyewitnesses, as one of the biggest protests against President Omar al-Bashir’s three-decade rule entered its fourth week. It was the first time protesters took to the streets in Kassala, located near Sudan’s border with Eritrea, since massive anti-government demonstrations…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}