Khartoum Barricades Symbolise Sudan’s Uprising

Young Sudanese protesters in T-shirts and jeans dump bricks in a pile to create a makeshift barricade in a Khartoum street — but they are playing a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse.

They disperse as dozens of riot police storm in on pickup trucks.

Officers in blue fatigues fire gunshots into the air as demonstrators sprint down side-streets in Shambat, a working class northern neighbourhood of the capital.

Security personnel set to clearing the road, first by hand and then with an excavator, setting fire to whatever can be burned, to prevent it being used again.

But shortly after they leave, the demonstrators return to the streets to put the makeshift roadblocks back in place.

The barricades in Sudan’s capital have become a symbol of the months-long demonstrations against longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir and the military council that overthrew him in April.

Protest leaders have called for a nationwide campaign of civil disobedience starting Sunday, days after armed men moved into a key protest camp outside army headquarters in central Khartoum, killing dozens of people.

Protest leaders say the wave of repression has left at least 118 people dead and hundreds wounded, mostly during the break-up of the protest camp.

The government says 61 have died.