Sudan inflation hits 46.5 pct in November as food prices jump - Al-Arabiya

Month-on-month, inflation was 1.2 percent in November, the Central Statistics Office said in its monthly bulletin.

Prices rose year-on-year by 83.8 percent for meat, 45.4 percent for sugar, 40.2 percent for vegetables and 70.2 percent for transport, the data showed.

Sudan cut back fuel subsidies and took other austerity measures in June to try to plug a government budget deficit.

The move led to a series of small anti-government demonstrations, but they mostly petered out after a security crackdown.

Arab-African Sudan has avoided the mass protests that have swept across much of the Middle East, but rising food prices and other grievances have inspired smaller demonstrations over the last two years.

Students from Darfur - a western region the size of Spain that has been torn by war for nearly a decade - had staged a sit-in at Gezira University demanding an exemption from tuition fees they say a presidential decree required, a spokesman for a Darfur student association said.

He said the sit-in was broken up on Wednesday by supporters of the ruling National Congress Party.

A number of students disappeared and three were found dead on Friday in the canal near the university, said the spokesman who asked not to be named.

"We hold the university administration and the ... students of the National Congress Party responsible for the death of these students," he said.

The group later said a fourth student had been found dead.

Police in Gezira state confirmed late on Friday two students had been found dead in a canal, and a third was missing, but said there were no signs of violence.

Sudanese youth activist groups including Change Now and Girifna issued statements blaming security forces for the students’ deaths and calling for protests.