Eight killed in Sudan bread price protests

Eight demonstrators have been killed in eastern Sudan, officials said, during clashes with riot police on the second day of protests over the rising price of bread.

A government decision to raise the price of bread this week from one Sudanese pound to three (from about two to six US cents) sparked protests across the country on Wednesday.

The protests spread on Thursday to the Sudanese capital Khartoum, where riot police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators near the presidential palace, witnesses said.

"Six were killed and a number of people were wounded" in the eastern city of Al-Qadarif, Al-Tayeb al-Amine Tah told local broadcaster Sudania 24, without providing further details.

The toll included a university student whose death during demonstrations in Al-Qadarif had been reported earlier in the day.

"The situation in Al-Qadarif is out of control and the student Moayed Ahmad Mahmoud was killed," said Mubarak al-Nur, a lawmaker in the city 550 kilometres (340 miles) from Khartoum.

Nur called on authorities "not to use force against demonstrators, who are asked to peacefully exercise their right" to protest.

Two other protesters were killed in the city of Atbara, around 400 kilometres east of Khartoum, governorate spokesman Ibrahim Mukhtar said.

Police in Atbara fired tear gas to disperse protesters just hours after authorities imposed a curfew on the city because demonstrators had torched the headquarters of President Omar al-Bashir's National Congress Party (NCP).

Angry protesters on Thursday set fire NCP headquarters in two other locations, witnesses said Demonstrators in Al-Qadarif "threw stones at banks (in the city centre) and smashed cars," resident Tayeb Omar Bashir told AFP by phone.

They then "moved to the ruling party headquarters near the market and torched it completely", he added.