Mourners paid tribute to Sudan's John Garang Tuesday, as his successor vowed to pursue the rebel-turned-statesman's peace drive and urged restraint as riots flared again in the capital Khartoum.
Foreign diplomats were rushing to Sudan to shore up the fragile peace agreement signed in January between Khartoum and the former southern rebel leader who died in a helicopter crash on Saturday.
In Khartoum, angry southern rioters convinced that the crash that killed their leader was not an accident continued to clash with security forces and northerners the day after at least 42 people were killed in riots.
In New Site, deep in the south Sudanese bush near the site of the helicopter crash, mourners filed by a simple table where his body lay in a coffin beneath the flag of his Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).
His death came barely three weeks after Garang became Sudan's first vice president following the that ended 21 years of civil war in Africa's largest country. Colleagues of Garang said he would be buried Saturday in Juba, further west, which he chose as the capital of an autonomous southern Sudan.
"We came to New Site to bring deep condolences to the (SPLM/A) leadership... for the tragic death," said Ali Nfea, Sudan's minister of federal affairs. "We are here to say that we are going to work together with the leadership of the SPLM."
On Monday, the former rebel movement chose Garang's deputy, Salva Kiir, as their new leader. The veteran southern leader is also expected to take over his predecessor's post as Sudanese first vice president.
Some observers have argued that Kiir's military background and lack of experience as a statesman have left him ill-prepared to tackle the daunting task of keeping the fledgling north-south peace alive.
The charismatic southern leader spearheaded the southern struggle for three decades and had recently come to personify new-found peace in Sudan. "There cannot be any development when there is no peace," Kiir said, expressing dismay at reports that Garang's death had sparked deadly riots between north and south Sudanese in Khartoum and violent protests in parts of the southern Sudan.
Omdurman Radio, one of the main stations in Sudan, said riots were taking place in Haj Yusef, a Khartoum neighbourhood inhabited mainly by foreigners and where Garang used to live before he returned to the bush in 1983.
On Tuesday, a massive deployment of policemen backed by soldiers and armoured personnel carriers were patrolling the city centre, where no major incidents were reported.
International diplomats were dispatched Tuesday to shore up the north-south peace process in Sudan, which is already torn by conflicts in the western region of Darfur and in the eastern Red Sea state.
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