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Khartoum life returns to normal after riot devastation

by Simon Apiku

KHARTOUM, Aug 5 (AFP) - Women were selling tea on street stalls Khartoum and beggars were plying their trade once again Friday as residents sought to resume normal life after deadly inter-ethnic rioting in the Sudanese capital.

The violence that erupted after the death last Saturday of former southern rebel leader John Garang left 111 people dead in the capital alone and a trail of devastation with cars torched and shops looted and smashed.

"Things are better," said a Khartoum trader who identified himself only as Hassan.

He said he had closed his store immediately after hearing the news on Monday of Garang's death, before the onslaught of rioting and revenge attacks pitting people from the mainly Christian and animist south against northern Muslims.

"I felt that something would happen," he told AFP.

Hassan reopened on Thursday after security improved, mostly owing to what Khartoum's governor Abdelhalim Mutaafi described as the largest deployment of security forces in the capital's history.

"The police appear to have the situation under control."

The security presence was noticeably lower than over the last four days, when heavily-armed police and soldiers were out in force and armored personnel carriers and police trucks mounted with machine guns patrolled the streets.

"I feel safer," said Ibrahim Fadallah, who sells mobile phone accessories in the city centre.

Women were back to selling tea on street stalls, northerners and southerners were no longer afraid of riding public transport together and even beggars, who had vanished during the unrest, reappeared on street corners.

"Fortunately the situation is quiet. We haven't received any reports of incidents overnight or this morning," said ICRC press adviser Larena Brander.

She said the death toll in Sudan's riots stood at 130, including 111 in Khartoum alone and 19 in the south following the death of Garang, leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) who was appointed vice president in a unity government only last month.

In Khartoum's flashpoint suburbs, residents said that while most people still favored staying home, life was almost back to normal.

"It's calm here," Michael Alor, a resident of the eastern Hajj Yussef neighborhood reported.

But he said many southerners were afraid to leave their homes in areas where they are a minority.

"People are still staying home," said David Jaden from the southwestern Kalakla neighborhood, one of the worst hit by the violence. He said northerners had stopped using mosques and loudspeakers to incite violence against southerners.

In the western suburb of Omdurman, residents also said the situation had noticeably improved.

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Copyright (c) 2005 Agence France-Presse
Received by NewsEdge Insight: 08/05/2005 07:30:58



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By Emergency: Sudan
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By Source: Agence France-Presse (AFP)
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