Special to WorldTribune.com

CAIRO — Sudan has been battling the worst unrest in decades.

Nearly 1,000 people have been arrested by the regime of President Omar Bashir in a crackdown on protesters. Sudanese police and security forces have confronted rioters attacked government buildings and gasoline stations in wake of price rises by Khartoum.

“The people want to overthrow the regime,” hundreds of protesters chanted in a demonstration outside Khartoum in late September.

The government has reported about 50 dead in clashes between protesters and police. Human rights activists said the number was believed to be at least three times that.

The Bashir regime, in power since 1989, has accused the violence of being organized from abroad, including the new republic of South Sudan. Officials said nearly 50 gasoline stations were attacked in violence fueled by Qatar’s A-Jazeera and Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya satellite channel.

“This has nothing to do with protests,” Interior Minister Ibrahim Hamad said. “We know that overseas foundations are supporting these criminal activities. They used the same tactics that the Darfour rebels are using in Darfour.”

The Interior Ministry has denied that police were using live ammunition. Hamad also dismissed photographs of civilian injuries as coming from neighboring Egypt.

“Why are you always telling lies?” a Sudanese journalist, Baram Abdul Muneim, asked. “The people are killed by [ruling] National Congress Party militia.”

The regime has also closed down Sudanese newspapers and the offices of Arabic foreign television channels. Officials said the local publications would be reopened at a later date. After his question, Abdul Muneim was taken into custody.

The riots were sparked by a government decision to remove subsidies from fuel. The move, opposed by many in the ruling National Congress Party resulted in a nearly 100 percent increase in gasoline and related services.

“We will continue implementing the economic program,” Khartoum Gov. Abdul Rahman Al Khidir, who acknowledged the use of live fire, said.

  Darfour, government buildings, Ibrahim Hamad, Khartoum, Omar Bashir, Violent protests in Sudan target gas stations