A new day of violence agitates Sudan. Three demonstrators were killed Monday in the repression of marches hostile to the military power, which strengthened its hold on the country with the putsch of October 25, announced doctors present on the spot.
Supporters of civilian power in Sudan, a country that emerged in 2019 from three decades of military-Islamist dictatorship, mobilized again on Monday, defying the security forces deployed en masse in the capital. As thousands of protesters marched towards the presidential palace, troops pulled out heavy weapons for the first time and fired tear gas canisters at the crowd.
Grenades, tear gas and machine guns
Large-caliber machine guns were visible on the roofs of army vehicles, an AFP journalist noted, as the repression has already killed at least 67 protesters since the coup d’etat. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane.
Amid tear gas canisters, stun grenades and water cannon fire, several injured protesters collapsed on Monday, some suffocated by tear gas and others bleeding after being hit head-on by grenades.
The violence in Khartoum is concentrated around the presidential palace, the former headquarters of dictator Omar al-Bashir dismissed in 2019 under the pressure of a popular uprising, where the transitional authorities now sit in the hands of General al- Burhane, the author of the putsch.
The UN tries to organize the dialogue, without success
The country has continued, since taking power, to sink into violence. A police general was stabbed to death during recent protests, while security forces fire, sometimes with live ammunition, at protesters and go so far as to attack wounded and doctors in hospitals, according to the World Organization Health (WHO).
On October 25, General Burhane had most of the civilians who shared power with him and his army arrested. They have since been released, but the country is still without a parliament since the 2019 fall of dictator Omar al-Bashir and without a government since the putsch. General Burhane, who has surrounded himself with generals and civilians without a militant past, is therefore de facto alone in command of the country, one of the poorest in the world.
The UN, for its part, is trying to organize a dialogue to relaunch a transition to democracy. Its mission in Khartoum multiplies the meetings between all the actors of the power, the civil society, and even the associations of women or young people, without however managing to obtain an agreement for direct or indirect negotiations between all in the immediate future.