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From the Associated Press





UP

Sudanese Arabs Flee After Riots Kill 18


Wednesday August 3, 2005 10:31 PM

AP Photo SXA105

By RODRIQUE NGOWI

Associated Press Writer

JUBA, Sudan (AP) - Sudanese Arabs fled this southern town Wednesday after ethnic Africans angered by the death of their popular rebel leader went on a two-day rampage, chasing Arabs in the street and burning Arab shops and homes. At least 18 people were killed, witnesses said.

Gunfire could be heard Wednesday night in Juba, southern Sudan's largest town and a key focal point of a peace deal between north and south. Heavy police and army patrols circulated in the otherwise empty dirt roads. Shops in an outdoor market stood charred and shattered.

At Juba's airport, dozens of Arabs - mostly men - lined up with baggage for flights to the capital Khartoum, in the north. Women and families appeared to have already left.

Violence erupted after the death of John Garang, the charismatic leader of rebels who for 21 years fought for ethnic African, mostly Christian and animist southern Sudan to gain independence from the Khartoum government in the mainly Muslim Arab north.

Garang died in a helicopter crash Saturday night, just three weeks after becoming vice president under an agreement that established a power-sharing government between north and south.

The government and Garang's own Sudan People's Liberation Movement say the crash was an accident. But outraged southerners rioted in the capital, Juba, and other cities, some believing the government was behind the death.

In Khartoum, 720 miles north of Juba, 82 people were killed in three days of violence after Garang's death, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Angry Garang supporters rioted in Khartoum on Monday, setting vehicles on fire, looting shops and beating people. In retaliation, groups of northern Arab men armed with sticks and firearms raged through homes and markets - mainly in outlying neighborhoods of southerners - destroying property and beating people.

Soldiers and police patrolled Khartoum in armored vehicles and pickup trucks Wednesday. For a third night, a curfew was imposed from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.

President Omar al-Bashir and Garang's deputies called for an end to the violence, promising an investigation into his death. The United Nations said it would help in the probe.

Glum shopkeepers in Khartoum's multiethnic eastern section of Hajj Yousef sat in front of their empty, burned-out shops.

``It was a disaster,'' said Jalal Ahmed, a bread-store owner from the central Nuba Mountains, wearing a white robe and dark sunglasses. ``They took everything.''

Suleiman Ahmed, 20, said he was pushed into the back of his electronics store while seven tall young men with knives took all the TVs and stereos. ``I thought they were going to kill me.''

Most agreed the gangs were made up of people from all areas of Sudan. They complained bitterly that rioters exploited Garang's death as an opportunity to loot, instead of supporting his peaceful cause.

Steven Majok, 30, from southern Sudan, was angry that southerners were being blamed for the violence in Khartoum.

``Tell people we are not gangsters, we are not thieves,'' he said. ``What happened has nothing to do with us, nothing to do with Garang. We southerners were too shocked to even move when we heard of his death, so how could we riot and steal?''

Yet in Juba - set to become the capital of Sudan's newly autonomous southern region - angry southerners attacked Arab-owned shops and homes Monday and Tuesday, chasing northerners through the streets and killing them, witnesses said. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear for their lives.

In one case, two Arabs tried to seek refuge in a nearby camp set up for humanitarian workers, but police turned them away. The men were killed nearby, Sudanese staffers at the camp said, refusing to give their names for the same reason.

The staffers said they knew of 18 people killed over the past two days.

Juba, a main front in the long civil war, is an impoverished garrison town for the northern Sudanese military. But the military and police apparently held back from stopping rioters for fear of inflaming tensions with southerners.

The town has a population of some 350,000, most of them southerners who are ethnic Africans, mainly Christians and animists. The town is surrounded by SPLM forces and supplied from the north by air.

Yet the Arab Muslim minority holds most of Juba's main businesses.

Garang will be buried in Juba on Saturday, and al-Bashir has said he will attend the funeral of a former enemy he has embraced as his ``brother'' since the peace deal was signed in January.

---

Associated Press writers Tanalee Smith and Mohamed Osman contributed to this report from Khartoum, Sudan.


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