Sudan’s Main Port to Reopen After Tribe Lifts Weekslong Blockade
Sudan’s Main Port to Reopen After Tribe Lifts Weekslong Blockade
(Bloomberg) -- Protesters in eastern Sudan said they’d lift their weekslong blockade of the country’s main port for one month in a deal with the army, a week after a coup in the North African nation.
Keeping Port Sudan’s shipping facilities and roads open will depend on Sudan’s government addressing the region’s concerns about autonomy and distribution of revenue, Yasin El-Shazali, a member of the Beja Council that backed the protests, said by phone on Monday.
The blockade that began in mid-September led to shortages of food and fuel nationwide and has disrupted more than $126 million worth of trade, Danish shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk A/S estimates. Civilian members of Sudan’s government, which was overthrown by the military last week, had accused the army of manipulating the Beja community into staging the blockade, a charge its leader denies.
The port authority hasn’t given instructions on the reopening and shipping has not yet resumed, Maersk’s branch manager, Mohammed Osman Widaa, said by phone.
Sudan’s ousted prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, is currently under house arrest and holding talks with the military and others on a resolution to the crisis. The putsch was met with widespread criticism, including from the U.S., United Nations and African Union.
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