Youth in Balila area in Sudan’s West Kordofan State last Friday staged protests calling for more employment of youths in the oil-rich area of Balila.

An eyewitness told Radio Tamazuj that the police used excessive force to quell the protests by dozens of angry youths, explaining that the Oil Protection Police used tear gas and live bullets to disperse the protesters after Friday prayers.

During confrontations a person was shot dead and 11 others wounded. The wounded were taken to hospitals in El Fula and Muglad areas, where three people later died on the same day in El Fula hospital.

The Sudanese Armed Forces intervened so as to put an end to the deadly clashes between the police and the youth, according to the same source.

Meanwhile, employees working for the oil companies in the area organized a three day strike in solidarity with their natives killed in the incident.

They made a petition to the state government entitled “Do the sons and daughters of Balila area have rights to work with the oil companies or not?”

The employees also requested the government to bring to book the perpetrators of the killings of the protesters.

File photo: Sudanese protesters run from riot police during clashes in Khartoum, September 2013 (AP)