, KHARTOUM, Sudan, Dec 21 – Sudan deployed troops in the capital Khartoum and other cities on Friday, witnesses said, after eight demonstrators were killed in clashes with riot police during protests over increased bread prices. pic.twitter.com/lJ9pysJfP7 — Wasil Ali (@wasilalitaha) December 19, 2018

Residents told Al Jazeera that the protests were triggered on Wednesday by a government decision to raise bread prices from one Sudanese pound ($0.02) to three Sudanese pounds ($0.063). There were protests in January over the same issue, with police using teargas to disperse hundreds of protesters in the capital Khartoum, and similar protests were held in Sudan in late 2016 after the government

 cut fuel subsidies. "The situation in Gadarif has become dangerous and the protests have developed to include fires and theft and it's now out of control," Mubarak al-Nur, its independent member of parliament, told Reuters news agency. Police in Atbara fired tear gas to disperse protesters just hours after authorities imposed a curfew on the city because demonstrators had torched the headquarters of President Omar al-Bashir's National Congress Party (NCP). Angry protesters on Thursday set fire NCP headquarters in two other locations, witnesses said

Demonstrators in Al-Qadarif "threw stones at banks (in the city centre) and smashed cars," resident Tayeb Omar Bashir told AFP by phone. The cost of bread has also risen and shortages have been reported for the past three weeks across several cities, including the capital Khartoum. In the past year, the cost of some commodities has more than doubled in Sudan, where inflation is running at close to 70 per cent and the pound has plunged in value. Sudan's economy has struggled to recover from the loss of three-quarters of its oil output - its main source of foreign currency - since South Sudan seceded in 2011, keeping most of the oilfields.
Protests break out across Sudan over rising prices of bread and fuel, resulting in at least eight deaths.