UPDATE - Sudanese protest doctor’s killing in Khartoum

UPDATES DEATH TOLL

KHARTOUM (AA) - Hundreds of protesters gathered outside Khartoum’s Royal Care Hospital early Friday to protest the killing one day earlier of at least three demonstrators, including a doctor.

"Protesters now gathered outside the hospital need protection and media coverage," the Sudanese Professionals Association said in a brief statement.

The association is urging supporters to continue broadcasting live footage of the protest on social-media platforms, and has called on international media outlets as well to cover events as they unfold.

On Thursday, two people were killed during Thursday demonstrations that erupted in Khartoum.

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD), an NGO, identified the two slain individuals as “Mohamed Obeid, a minor, and Babikir Abdul Hamid, a medical doctor”.

Following the latter’s death on Thursday, the CCSD announced plans to organize a doctors’ strike at Sudanese hospitals.

On Friday afternoon, the CCSD announced that a third victim of Thursday’s violence had succumbed to his injuries.

"The number of those killed by regime forces [on Thursday] has risen to three with the death of Muawiya Bashir Khalil," it said in a statement.

Since mid-December, Sudan has been rocked by mass demonstrations in several parts of the country.

Protesters blame President Omar al-Bashir and his ruling National Congress Party for their apparent failure to remedy the country’s economic ills and demand al-Bashir’s resignation.

According to government statements, 24 people have been killed in clashes between demonstrators and security forces since the protests began in earnest one month ago.

Opposition groups, for their part, put the death toll at closer to 40.

In power since 1989, al-Bashir has pledged to carry out urgent economic reforms amid ongoing calls by the opposition to continue demonstrating.

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