Police opened fire and shot tear gas at Darfuri students trying to organise a demonstration today against an attack on a village in Sudan's western region which killed 20 people, witnesses said.
Four vehicles with machine guns and two tanks guarded the governor's office as truckloads of soldiers and police raced through the state capital el-Geneina's dusty streets, two days after Arab militia attacked Abu Surooj village in West Darfur state.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned today's attack and urged the government to take action to stop the violence in Darfur.
He warned the region was descending into anarchy with increased violence in recent weeks. Ibtisam Mohamed, 18, and six other girls were at the hospital because they had collapsed after being tear gassed.
"Some of the boys at the school wanted to go to the demonstration and the headmaster refused to let them go," she said.
She lay on plastic sheeting on the floor of the emergency room in the hospital, struggling for breath.
"That's when they opened fire with the tear gas bombs." Next door, 22-year-old student Mohamed Osman Mokhtar was being operated on. He had been shot in the leg. "Mohamed is finished, he's finished," wailed the young man's uncle.
"This was no accident. They shot many times at the school." His mother and sisters cried silently outside.