Street clashes in north as southerners hail vote
KHARTOUM: Students clashed with police in north Sudan as youths heeded calls to take to the streets for a day of nationwide anti-government protests despite a heavy security deployment.
The protests on Sunday, coinciding with preliminary results in south Sudan's landmark referendum on independence, ended with violent clashes in Khartoum. Police said at least 64 people were arrested.
At the Islamic University of Omdurman, Khartoum's twin city, about 1000 demonstrators were confronted by riot police as they marched, shouting slogans against the President, Omar al-Bashir.
''Ocampo, what you have said is right!'' they chanted, referring to the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who has accused Mr Bashir of genocide and war crimes in Darfur.
Nearly 99 per cent of southern Sudanese voters chose secession in the independence referendum last month, clearing the way for Sudan to split in two.
The preliminary results were announced at a ceremony attended by a crowd of several thousand people in the southern capital, Juba, on Sunday.
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