The leadership of John Garang's political movement has called for an international investigation into the weekend helicopter crash in southern Sudan that killed their leader and 13 others, sparking two days of deadly clashes in the capital.
Pagan Amum, a leading member of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, said the group hoped the UN, Uganda, Kenya, the US and Britain would take part in the probe, according to comments published in yesterday's Sudan Vision newspapers.
The SPLM and the government have said they believe the crash was an accident due to poor weather. It was not clear whether the request for a probe was a change in that stance.
PHOTO: AFP
Amum also urged Sudanese to refrain from violence.
"We once again appeal to the people to avoid anything that would mar the climate of peace, albeit the great loss and suffering they feel," Amum told the English daily.
At least 49 people were killed in Khartoum in two days of violence, according to a UN official, though the number was not officially confirmed.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also urged calm, saying of the helicopter crash that "all indications as of now seem to indicate it was an accident."
The government and SPLM have sought to reassure people that the fragile peace was not threatened by the death of the charismatic Garang. Amum stressed that the implementation of January's comprehensive peace agreement would continue as planned.
Clashes erupted Monday in Khartoum, when angry SPLA supporters reacted to the news of Garang's death by smashing and burning vehicles and looting stores. Some blamed the government for Garang's death.
On Tuesday, frightened Sudanese in some neighborhoods carried clubs and bricks for protection as the violence turned ethnic and sectarian, pitting Muslim Arabs against Khartoum residents from the mostly Christian and animist south.
Armed gangs, said to be Arabs, broke into homes of southerners in several parts of the capital on Tuesday, and Garang supporters attacked Muslim neighborhoods. Television footage showed southerners' homes torn apart, furniture smashed and doors hanging on hinges.
A dusk-to-dawn curfew was declared for the second night in a row and armored vehicles topped by soldiers patrolled the streets of downtown. In the outlying neighborhoods where the violence was focused, the military presence was even heavier.
On Saturday, Garang's helicopter crashed into a southern mountain range in bad weather, only three weeks after he was named first vice president and joined the government that had long been his enemy. The move was part of a peace deal that southerners and northerners together celebrated as opening a new page in the conflict-torn country.
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