The head of Sudan’s ruling military council said today there must be immediate accountability following an incident in which at least four school children were shot dead yesterday, Reuters reported state news agency SUNA saying. “What happened in El-Obeid is a regrettable and upsetting matter and the killing of peaceful citizens is unacceptable and rejected and a crime that requires immediate and deterrent accountability,” Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan was quoted as saying. At least four schoolchildren and one adult were shot dead when security forces broke up a student protest yesterday, campaigners said. Gunfire rang out as teenagers rallied against fuel and bread shortages in the capital of North Kordofan state, residents said, at a time of heightened tension between opposition campaigners and Sudan’s military rulers. The Forces of Freedom and Change coalition of opposition groups accused military and paramilitary forces of opening fire on the high school pupils and called for nationwide protests in response. There was no immediate statement from Sudan’s ruling military council. The governor of North Kordofan, General Al-Sadiq Al-Tayeb Abdallah, said that three high school students and two other citizens died when “infiltrators” diverted a peaceful demonstration from its course and attacked a bank branch and tried to attack another, state news agency SUNA reported. He did not say how the victims died but added that a committee was set up to investigate. A building belonging to the Bank of Khartoum was set on fire during the unrest in El-Obeid, 400 kilometres (250 miles) southwest of the capital Khartoum, residents told Reuters. Videos circulating on social media purported to show pupils protesting outside El-Obeid’s main hospital against the killings and injuries. Hundreds of teenagers in uniform chanted “blood for blood, we will not accept blood money” in the footage. Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the videos. A member of a professional body of pharmacists linked to the opposition captured a video and photographs that he said showed a corpse and several wounded young men inside El-Obeid Teaching Hospital.