Thousands of Sudanese are calling again on Thursday, December 30, for civilian power in Sudan under the rule of the army, braving tear gas canisters, cutting off communications and completely locking Khartoum.
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With each new call from the demonstrators proclaiming that “the revolution continues»Faced with the head of the army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, who reinforced his power with a putsch on October 25, the authorities are mobilizing new techniques.
The internet shutdown has already been used for weeks after the coup, in a country ruled by the military almost continuously since its independence 65 years ago. Saturday, during the last demonstration calling for civil power and the return of “soldiers at the barracks», The authorities had also cut the telephone and the bridges connecting the capital to its suburbs with imposing containers.
Hard blow for the activists
But Thursday, for the first time, neither local phone calls nor those from abroad could succeed. A hard blow for the activists who try to mobilize the world to their cause, via social networks and the diaspora. In addition, the security forces – police, military and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces – had installed cameras on the main axes of Khartoum.
This did not stop thousands of protesters chanting again Thursday “No to military power” and “The soldiers at the barracks!»In Khartoum but also in other cities of Sudan, in particular in Kessala and Port-Sudan in the east or in Madani, in the south of the capital. A few hundred meters from the presidential palace in Khartoum where the Sovereign Council, the highest authority of the transition headed by General Burhane, sits, the security forces fired tear gas canisters.
As early as Wednesday, the American embassy had demanded “extreme restraint in the use of force”, While in two months of anti-coup mobilization, 48 demonstrators were killed and hundreds wounded by gunshot. Between tear gas canisters, live ammunition in the air and beatings with sticks to disperse the crowd, 235 people were injured on Saturday in the national mobilization. This report was provided by a union of pro-democracy doctors, which lists the victims since the “revolutionWhich forced the generals to dismiss one of their own, the dictator Omar al-Bashir, in 2019.
“Arbitrary arrests”
The US Embassy further calls on the authorities to “not to resort to arbitrary detentions», While activists report new night raids at their homes, as often on the eve of each demonstration. December 19, the third anniversary of the “revolutionThe security forces have been accused by the UN of having raped demonstrators in an attempt to break down a movement that continues to regularly mobilize tens of thousands of Sudanese.
Because the street which manifests wants an entirely civilian power as had been promised at the fall of Bashir in 2019. Military and civilians had agreed on a timetable according to which the generals were to step aside shortly. General Burhane’s coup d’etat – a “correction of the course of the revolutionAccording to him – reshuffled the cards. Under the terms of an agreement that the army chief signed on November 21 with civilian prime minister Abdallah Hamdok, the latter was reinstated after being placed under house arrest.
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And General Burhane’s mandate at the head of the transitional authorities has been extended until the elections promised in July 2023. But Sudan still does not have a government, a sine qua non for the resumption of international aid. vital for this country, one of the poorest in the world. As for Abdallah Hamdok, denounced by the street as a “traitor” Who “promotes the return of the old regime“, He poses the threat of a possible resignation, if we are to believe the regular leaks of the local press which ensures that he would appear only rarely in his office.