(Khartoum) Police fired tear gas on Tuesday at thousands of Sudanese who took to the streets to mark the first anniversary of the putsch and demand a civilian government, defying an internet shutdown and a massive military deployment.
Posted at 10:53 a.m.
“The soldiers in the barracks”, chanted demonstrators in the capital Khartoum and its suburbs, where all roads were blocked.
Because from dawn, the two camps were activated: the demonstrators erected barricades to slow down the advance of the security forces and these blocked bridges and avenues to prevent a surge of protesters towards the presidential palace where the seat of the General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, the author of the October 25, 2021 coup.
It was near this building that the police fired tear gas canisters in an attempt to disperse the crowd, witnesses said.
Since the putsch, demonstrators and activists have repeated the same slogan: “no negotiation or partnership with the putschists” and a return to power for civilians, a sine qua non condition for the resumption of international aid interrupted following the putsch.
A year ago, General Burhane, head of the army, broke all the commitments made two years earlier in Sudan, a country plunged into a serious economic crisis.
At dawn, he had the civilian leaders with whom he had agreed to share power arrested when, in 2019, the army was forced by the streets to depose one of its own, the dictator Omar al-Bashir after three decades in power.
With each mobilization against the coup, the internet connection is interrupted in the country, as is the case on Tuesday.
Despite everything, thousands of Sudanese hostile to military power came out in Atbara, in the north of Sudan, as well as in Wad Madani and al-Obeid, in the center of the country, in Gedaref and Port-Sudan, in the East , and in Niyala, in the west, residents told AFP.
The parades continued in the afternoon, despite the repression which killed 118 demonstrators in one year, according to pro-democracy doctors.
Uncertainties
Sudan is swimming in uncertainty. No observer imagines possible the holding of the elections promised in the summer of 2023, no political figure seeming so far ready to join the civilian government regularly promised by General Burhane, while international mediations have not succeeded.
And international aid is sorely needed in this country, one of the poorest in the world and where the economic situation is catastrophic.
Between three-digit inflation and food shortages, a third of the 45 million inhabitants suffer from hunger. This is 50% more than a year ago, underlines the World Food Program (WFP).
The price of the minimum food basket has increased by 137% in one year, forcing almost all households to “spend more than two thirds of their income on food”, adds the WFP.
In addition to the difficult living conditions, many Sudanese are worried, three years after the “revolution” of 2019, of the return of the Islamic-military dictatorship.
Because since the putsch, several faithful of Mr. Bashir, today in prison, have found their posts, in particular in the Justice which is currently leading the trial of the ex-president.
Tribal conflicts
On Friday, thousands of them took to the streets to commemorate the 58e anniversary of the first “revolution” that overthrew a military power. A challenge in a country with an almost continuous history under the control of generals.
In their calls to demonstrate, the activists promised that “the parades of October 25 will be the announcement of the end of the era of putschists and the constitution of a civil and democratic Sudan”.
On Monday, Western embassies called on “authorities to respect the right to peaceful assembly” and “not to use force”.
After the coup, the security vacuum in some places allowed tribal conflicts to flourish, experts report. These automatic weapon fights, generally for access to land and water, have caused nearly 600 deaths and more than 210,000 displaced since the beginning of 2022, according to the UN.
On Monday, thousands of Sudanese demonstrated in the province of Blue Nile (south), where “250 people were killed” last week in tribal fighting.