Protesters blocked Port Sudan’s container terminal and a road between the eastern city and the capital Khartoum on Sunday to protest against a peace deal signed by the government and groups from across the country, a union official and residents said.
The deal, ratified on Saturday in the South Sudanese capital, Juba, was focused on resolving conflicts in the western Darfur region and southern states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan.
Groups from other regions also signed, but some in the east said the two factions that participated in the “eastern track” of the peace process do not represent political forces on the ground, Reuters reported.
The deal is aimed at ending decades of conflict in Sudan and uniting the country behind a political transition following the ouster of former leader Omar Bashir in April 2019.
However, the two most active groups in the west and the south did not sign, and analysts said that during negotiations, local communities were not widely consulted by military and civilian authorities now sharing power.
Workers at the southern port, Sudan’s main sea terminal for containers, and at Suakin port to the south, were on strike over the peace deal, said Aboud El-Sherbiny, head of the Port Sudan Workers Union.
“We demand the cancellation of the ‘eastern track’ and the agreement that was signed yesterday in Juba because this track expresses an external agenda,” he said.
“We will take escalatory steps if this demand is not met.”
South Sudan President Salva Kiir warned that implementing the deal would not be an easy task and urged the international community to lend its support.
“We have no illusion that the implementation of the peace agreement we are celebrating today will be an easy business especially with the economic realities facing Sudan presently,” he said.
“Sudan needs financial resources to rebuild the infrastructure destroyed by the war and floods.”
Economic hardship triggered the anti-Bashir protests and remain a pressing concern — food prices have tripled in the past year and the Sudanese pound has depreciated dramatically.
Recent flooding, which has affected nearly 830,000 people, has worsened the situation.
