Sudanese police have killed up to 17 people and injured 20 after they opened fire on a march in the eastern city of Port Sudan, a hospital source said.

An official source said the death toll on Saturday was lower.

"This started since last (Friday) night, but most of them were this morning - they were all gunshot wounds," the source at the hospital in Port Sudan said. "About 17 were killed and around 20 injured," added the source, who declined to be named.

On Wednesday, members of eastern tribes, mostly the Beja, presented a list of demands to the Red Sea state governor, including wealth and power sharing. They warned they would take unspecified actions if the demands were not met within 72 hours.

"This time was up today and they started a march towards the governor's office," the hospital source said, adding the police stopped the march before it got very far.

Curfew

The source said seven soldiers were injured by stones, but only civilians suffered gunshot wounds.

The interior ministry declined to comment on the number killed but said in a statement: "A number of civilians tried to create a state of chaos in the town ... and the police forces moved to challenge them."

It said the situation was calm on Saturday afternoon.

The Egyptian state news agency MENA reported from Port Sudan that the regional security committee has ordered a curfew throughout the city from 6pm on Saturday to 6am on Sunday.

On Sunday, the curfew will start at 5 pm, it added.

Rebel group

The minister of finance in Port Sudan, Ali Mahmud, told Reuters by telephone that a number of the demonstrators on Saturday morning started looting shops and the police intervened.

"Some were killed, but not as many as 17," he said. He said he did not know of shots fired or how the people were killed.

"There were some little clashes between the police and those making chaos," he said, adding some police had also been injured.

One police official in Port Sudan said many were killed and injured by gun shots. "There was shooting in the centre of the town at the demonstration," the official said.

An eastern rebel group, the Beja Congress, has accused the Khartoum government of neglecting the east of Sudan, where the World Food Programme says some areas have higher malnutrition rates than the crisis-hit western Darfur region.

The Beja Congress has launched limited military operations in the east but has made little impact on Khartoum.

Eyewitnesses in hotels and at the university in the town said the situation was calmer on Saturday afternoon, but there was a heavy police presence.

PHOTO CAPTION

Port Sudan.