UPDATE - Sudan protester dies in security custody amid protests

UPDATES WITH POLICE COMMENT

By Mohammed Amin

KHARTOUM (AA) – A Sudanese protester died in the custody of security forces on Saturday amid protests against economic woes in the Arab country, according to an NGO.

Ahmed Alkhair, a teacher, breathed his last in the custody of the National Intelligence Security Service (NISS), the Central Committee of the Sudanese Doctors said in a statement.

No details were available about the circumstances of his death.

Sudanese police, for its part, confirmed the death, denying that the teacher had been tortured while in custody.

"The person who died during inquiries has felt ill and died as he was taken to hospital,” the police director of Kassala state, Major General Yassin Hassan, told state television.

"His family has received a medical report about the circumstances of his death and they were satisfied that the cause of the death was not because of any aggression against him,” he said.

Last week, a university student died in security custody in Khartoum.

Sudan has been rocked by popular protests since mid-December, with demonstrators decrying President Omar al-Bashir’s seeming failure to remedy the country’s chronic economic woes.

Sudanese authorities say that around 31 people were killed since the protests began, while the opposition puts the death toll at around 50.

Last month, al-Bashir -- in power since 1989 -- pledged to carry out urgent economic reforms amid continued calls by the opposition to protest.

A nation of 40 million, Sudan has struggled to recover from the loss of three quarters of its oil output -- its main source of foreign currency -- since the secession of South Sudan in 2011.