KHARTOUM, Aug 1: At least 24 people were killed in Khartoum on Monday in riots sparked by the death of John Garang, who led Sudan’s southern rebels for two decades before making peace and joining the government he fought.

Mr Garang, a key figure in a January peace deal hailed a rare success story for Africa, became the first vice president on July 9. He died over the weekend after the Ugandan presidential helicopter he was travelling in went down in bad weather.

As news of his death spread on Monday, thousands of his southern Sudanese supporters who had greeted a triumphant Garang when he became first vice president in July, took to the streets of Khartoum, wielding knives and bars, looting shops, starting fires and clashing with police.

Two police officials said 24 people, including police, were killed in the rioting. A Khartoum resident earlier said two people had been killed in his street.

“They (southerners) are beating anybody they see who looks like they are Arab,” Swayd Abdullah, a student, said.

“People have been running all over the streets. The policemen are taking people from the streets. There is fire and smoke,” a witness said.

The Khartoum governor announced a curfew from 6pm until 6am in the capital.

The rioting was some of the worst in the Sudanese capital in recent years. In May, displaced southerners attacked a police station in a camp on the outskirts of the capital and at least 17 police and residents were killed in the violence.

Members of John Garang’s southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the government in Khartoum — bitter enemies during the 21-year conflict – both promised to maintain the peace agreement Mr Garang helped bring about.

Six of Garang’s companions and a crew of seven also died in the crash near the Sudan-Uganda border, Khartoum said on Monday.—Reuters