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In new violence that comes just days after the launch of a dialogue under the supervision of the United Nations, a Sudanese policeman with the rank of brigadier was killed during the demonstrations in Khartoum on Thursday in protest against the coup of army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan. Security forces fired tear gas canisters at thousands of anti-demonstrators near the presidential palace in Khartoum. Since the coup carried out by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the Sudanese have taken to the streets regularly to demand that the military step down from power.
Police announced Sudanese An officer with the rank of brigadier was killed during the demonstrations taking place in Khartoum on Thursday in protest against the coup of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on October 25, according to a statement.
The office said in an official statement posted on its Facebook page, “The designated Minister of Interior and the Director General of Police (…) count with God Almighty Police Brigadier General Ali Berima Hamad,” explaining that he was killed while “protecting protestors’ convoys.”
Brigadier General Ali Barima Ahmed is the first dead security force since the start of the demonstrations against the coup, which, according to the Central Doctors Committee (an independent union), has resulted in the killing of 63 protesters so far.
Firing tear gas at protesters
Witnesses confirmed that the security forces Sudanese On Thursday, thousands of anti-coup protesters were fired with tear gas, near the presidential palace in Khartoum, witnesses said, in violence that comes just days after the shooting. Dialogue under the auspices of the United Nations.
Sudan has been plunged into a cycle of violence since the coup carried out by the commander of the Sudanese army, General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, against his civilian partners in power, on October 25.
These new demonstrations come a few days after the United Nations launched talks that included all Sudanese factions in an attempt to resolve the crisis caused by the coup of Al-Burhan.
Demonstrators chanted, “Burhan and Heather Gabuh Al-Kizan,” a term used in Sudan to refer to the Islamists.
Since the coup, Sudanese have regularly taken to the streets to demand that the military step down. In the face of these protests, the security forces resorted to repression, which resulted in 63 deaths and hundreds of injuries so far, according to the Central Doctors Committee (an independent union) supporting the demonstrators.
Supporters of civilian rule in Sudan, which has been under military rule almost continuously since its independence 66 years ago, see the coup as a way to restore the regime of former President Omar al-Bashir, who was backed by Islamists.
He presented the civilian face of the transitional period, Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok He resigned in early January.
The military have not been able to form a civilian government since the coup, despite their pledge to do so immediately after they dismissed Hamdok’s government on October 25. They tried to use him again and made a political agreement with him in which he regained his position, but the obstacles he faced called for him to resign again.
The Sudanese street, for its part, rejects compromise, Egypt on its demand: the departure of General Al-Burhan, as they had previously forced Al-Bashir to leave in 2019.
Despite the difficulty of the task due to the contradictory positions, the United Nations is trying to bring all the actors on the Sudanese arena back to the negotiating table.
refused to negotiate
For his part, the United Nations representative in Khartoum, Volker Perthes, announced on Monday the official launch of an initiative whereby he would hold bilateral meetings with the various parties before moving at a later stage to direct or indirect talks between them.
If Perthes asserted that there was “no objection” on the part of the military, a number of civilian factions rejected his idea.
The Sudanese Professionals Association, which played a major role in the protests that ousted al-Bashir, “totally rejected” such talks, while the Forces for Freedom and Change, the main civilian political bloc, demanded guarantees that this dialogue would not turn into a means of “legitimizing” the “coup regime”.
These attitudes reflect the orientations of the demonstrators who take to the streets under the slogan “No negotiation, no partnership” with the army.
General Al-Burhan confirms that what he did was not a coup, but rather a “correction of the course of the revolution” and that he wants to lead Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world, to free elections in 2023.
However, his supporters abroad are shrinking and the resumption of international aid suspended with the coup is not currently in the cards.
In Egypt, Sudan’s northern neighbor and a traditional ally of the military in Khartoum, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has so far been silent, appeared to support the UN initiative. “Stability will only come with consensus among all the existing forces,” he said.
He added, “Just because we did not talk about what is happening there, does not mean that we are not supportive of dialogue and consensus among all forces.”
FRANCE 24/AFP
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