Eight killed in Sudan food-price protests

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At least eight people have been killed in protests against higher bread prices and other economic woes across Sudan, officials said on Thursday.

At least six people had died in clashes with police in the eastern city of Qadarif, the city's legislator Al-Tayeb al-Amine Tah told local broadcaster Sudania 24 on Thursday, while the spokesman for the Nile River state said two people had been killed there.

Protests broke out in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, Barbar in the north and Nohoud in the western Kordofan region and are among the worst to have hit the country since crowds came out against cuts to state subsidies in 2013, when many called for a new government.

The protests have brought thousands of people into the streets of Sudan, with a mob in the northern city of Atbara also torching the headquarters of President Omar Bashir's National Congress Party.

An employee works at the factory of food items and beverages owned by Sudanese businessman Samir Gasim in Khartoum, September 20, 2018. /VCG Photo

Vehicles parked outside were also torched. Police have responded by firing teargas on many of the protesters.

The public anger has been building over the price rise, inflation and other economic hardships, including a doubling in the cost of bread in 2018 and limits on bank withdrawals.

The protests coincided with the return of opposition leader Sadeq al-Mahdi to Sudan. Al-Mahdi was living in self-imposed exile outside Sudan for nearly a year. Thousands of his supporters welcomed him home on Wednesday.

Sudan's economy has struggled for most of the nearly three decades since Bashir has been in power. The situation has rapidly deteriorated since the secession of the south of the country in 2011, which deprived Khartoum of the oilfields there.

Sudanese civilians wait in a queue to buy bread from a bakery in Khartoum, November 19, 2013. /VCG Photo

Even as the U.S. lifted 20-year-old trade sanctions on Sudan in October 2017, the country's economic woes have been exacerbated in the past few years.

Since the beginning of 2018, the bread prices have risen to more than triple after the Sudanese government decided to stop state-funded imports of wheat.

Instead of creating competition between private companies importing wheat and lowering down the wheat prices, the move caused many bakeries to stop production, citing a lack of flour.

Meanwhile, the value of the Sudanese pound has slumped by 85 percent against the U.S. dollar this year, while inflation soared to nearly 70 percent in September.

(With inputs from agencies)