US Embassy in Khartoum was not damaged in protests against anti-Islamic film. Demonstrations in other states have become violent., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Protest at US embassy in Sudan over anti-Islam film
(AFP)
KHARTOUM — Hundreds of protesters upset over a movie mocking Islam demonstrated outside the American embassy in Sudan on Wednesday, an embassy official said, after attacks on US missions in Libya and Egypt.
"I do believe it was a few hundred," the official said, asking for anonymity. "Our compound was not breached."
The amateur American-made Internet video film at the centre of the controversy, Innocence of Muslims, portrays Muslims as immoral and gratuitously violent.
The film is being promoted by controversial Florida pastor Terry Jones, who has drawn protests in the past.
"It has to do with this film," the US embassy official said of the protest by a group which called itself "Sudanese Youth".
He said embassy staff met three of the protesters, who delivered written demands.
"They were asking for an immediate apology, removal of the YouTube video", and expressed their displeasure at pastor Jones, the official said.
In neighbouring Egypt on Tuesday thousands of demonstrators tore down the Stars and Stripes at the Cairo US embassy and replaced it with a black Islamic flag, similar to one adopted by several militant groups.
In Khartoum, the sprawling US embassy compound is located far from the city centre.
In 2008, an American embassy aid worker, John Granville, 33, and his driver were killed in a drive-by shooting in the Sudanese capital. The attack was claimed by Islamic extremists.
Khartoum is seeking the removal of United States sanctions imposed in 1997 over support for international terrorism, its human rights record and other concerns.
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