JEDDAH, 27 May — Some 3,000 Sudanese nationals who fled Libya in the wake of bloody riots last year have filed for compensation. Score of people were killed in the riots involving African expatriate workers and Libyans.
Sudanese officials said that out the hundreds of applications filed by the workers who have since returned home, only 400 were found to have met the conditions set by the Libyan authorities for compensation. Thousands of African workers, including many Sudanese, fled Libya in the wake of the September 2000 riots which, according to official Libyan figures, left 50 people dead. Eyewitnesses however said as many as 150 may have been killed in the violence. Some of those killed were Sudanese while the majority were from West African countries.
Sudanese Minister of Justice Muhammad Othman Yassin was quoted by the media in Khartoum as saying he will visit Tripoli next month to discuss the matter with Libyan officials.
Last week a Libyan court sentenced to death seven people — two Libyans and five African expatriate workers — for their role in the riots. The nationalities of the foreigners were not given. The court also sentenced 12 Africans to life in prison and 165 others to prison terms ranging from six months to 15 years.
In a separate development, a member of the Peoples National Congress, the party led by detained Sudanese leader Hassan Turabi, was shot dead by security forces in Khartoum on Friday after he refused to accompany them for questioning.
Ahmad Bashir, 35, was shot in the head following an argument with security officers who stopped his car in a Khartoum suburb on Friday. A police statement said the man resisted arrest and in the ensuring brawl a bullet went off hitting him on the forehead. He later died in hospital of his wounds. The party, however, contradicted the official account saying Ahmad’s killing was political assassination. “He was liquidated. As party activist, he was well known to the authorities because he joined jihad campaigns (against rebels) several times in the southern and eastern the parts of the country,” a party official said.
The police later used tear gas to break up a demonstration staged by party workers who were joined by enraged residents from the neighborhood where Ahmad Bashir lived. The authorities said they arrested the officers involved and opened an inquiry into the incident.
Turabi, once the most influential man in Khartoum, broke up with the government two years ago to form his own party. He was arrested after signing an agreement with the rebel Sudan Peoples Liberation Army led by John Garang who has been fighting a civil war in the south since 1983. The government said Garang is bent on toppling it by force and saw in the Garang-Turabi agreement a conspiracy to topple the regime.
