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| - Soldiers and police reinforcements been deployed in Port Sudan to quell days of ethnic violence in the Red Sea city that has killed some 30 people, authorities and residents said Thursday. "The central government has sent troops to improve stability and security," Sudan's interior ministry said in a statement. "Incidents in recent days in Port Sudan have killed 32 people and wounded 98, including members of the regular forces," it added. Earlier Thursday, a doctors' committee had reported 30 deaths and 116 wounded since Sunday. Violence broke out on Sunday evening, witnesses said. Fighting began when Nuba residents, who had been demonstrating against a new governor, entered a neighbourhood dominated by the Beni Amer people, witnesses said. There is longstanding hostility between the two ethnic groups. Local residents told AFP on Thursday that calm had returned to the streets. Security forces including police and army soldiers had deployed in the eastern city since Wednesday and "set up checkpoints, searched vehicles and arrested several people", Hassan Hamed, a local resident, told AFP by telephone. Clashes continued Wednesday despite the initial arrival of security reinforcements, he said, adding that on Thursday "the city has been calm". The interior ministry said authorities in Red Sea state, of which Port Sudan is the capital, had announced a curfew in the city. Port Sudan is the transit point for most of Sudan's foreign trade. The Nuba originate from the mountains of Sudan's South Kordofan state, an area that has suffered decades of war with successive Arab-dominated governments in Khartoum. The Beni Amer regard themselves as among the native inhabitants of eastern Sudan. ab/sk/mdz/lg/fz
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