Although every week the Sudanese insist on protesting and demanding that power be handed over to the people, yesterday’s mobilizations were the largest and deadliest in months.
Nine protesters were killed Thursday in Khartoum, where tens of thousands of Sudanese marched shouting “People want the fall of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan”, the leader of the armed forces and the mastermind of the coup. violence and deep economic crisis.
Although every week the Sudanese insist on protesting and demanding that power be handed over to the people, yesterday’s mobilizations were the largest and deadliest in months.
Two people were shot dead in Omdurman … and cases of suffocation in the Khartoum protests#Sudan # السودان pic.twitter.com/M6hinQBl6i
– Hashtag Elyoum (@Hashtagelyoum) June 30, 2022
The 9 victims were killed by security forces, 7 – including a child – by bullets “in the chest” or “on the head”, said doctors, who also complained that the security forces threw, for the umpteenth time, tear gas inside a hospital.
Last Wednesday night, as small groups called on Sudanese to come down to protest, a young protester was shot dead by a “bullet in the chest” in Khartoum, according to a medical organization, part of the movement demanding democracy.
Crowds in Omdurman (Karari) against #SudanCoup despite the junta blocking the internet & voice calls# June30March # ملیونية 30 يونيو pic.twitter.com/wuXwkD7h8a
– Mohamed Mustafa – محمد مصطفى جامع (@Moh_Gamea) June 30, 2022
At least 112 protesters have been killed and thousands more injured since the military junta was imposed in Sudan on October 25, 2021, which the UN says often opens fire on crowds of protesters.
“Even if we all die, the military will not rule us,” the crowd shouted yesterday, while the political arm of the Forces for Freedom and Change (CMP) noted that “as expected, the coup plotters unleashed their violence.” He added: “(yesterday) marches proved that the revolution is not dead.”
Eight months after the generals seized power, leading one of the world’s poorest nations to wither, thousands of citizens, defying repression, continue to call for the military to hand over power to civilians.
Internet and telephones disabled
June 30 is a day of great symbolism for the great country of East Africa: it is the anniversary of the coup that marked the seizure of power by dictator Omar El Bashir in 1989.
After all, it was June 2019 when giant demonstrations took place that pushed the generals to overthrow Bashir and form a new government, together with the citizens.
The protesters want to repeat the achievement, to force the military to leave the reins of the country.
As is the case with calls for mass mobilizations, internet access was cut off and the telephone network was down all day, before these services began to be partially restored at night, while some marches were dismantled and major roads were combed by the security forces, found journalists of the French Agency.
In addition to Khartoum and their suburbs, protesters also found on the streets in Wad Madani (south), Darfur (west) and in several cities in coastal eastern Sudan, eyewitnesses said.
Ahead of the protests, UN special envoy Volker Pertes called for an “end to the violence” and several embassies called for “not to lose another life”.
But the foreign capitals do not really seem to be able to pressure the ruling generals in Sudan almost continuously since the country’s independence in 1956.
On October 25, 2021, when the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, General Burhan, abruptly put an end to the fragile military and civilian government and ordered the arrest of politicians, the international community suspended financial aid to Khartoum – which was 40%. Sudan budget.
The range of famine
The economic sanctions did not bend the generals, but plunged the economy: the Sudanese pound collapsed, inflation soared to over 200%.
Worse still, the famine spectrum is beginning to erase. One-third of Sudanese face “acute food insecurity”, potentially fatal, and by September the figure is expected to reach 50%, according to the UN.
In early June, the NGO Save the Children announced the deaths of two children due to starvation.
At the same time, violence in the war-torn country has resumed its vicious cycle: in Darfur, hundreds of people have been killed in land and water clashes, and the crackdown on mass protests has left people dead or injured every week.
Despite foreign pressure, the CMP, the backbone of politicians in the government that was overthrown in October, refuses to participate in the “national dialogue” proposed by the military and the UN.
They make the restoration to power of the previous civilian and military government a prerequisite for any negotiation.
The military, in addition to political life, also dominates the country’s economy, which has oil fields – although most were located in now-independent South Sudan -, gold and other natural resources.
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