The opposition is mobilized on Saturday to protest against the seizure of power by General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhane.
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Opponents of the military coup in Sudan demonstrate Saturday, October 30 against General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhane, determined to put the democratic transition back on track, despite five days of murderous repression. The junta’s response, when nine protesters have already been killed and more than 170 injured according to doctors, will be scrutinized around the world, a senior American official has already warned. “It will be a real test on the intentions of the military”, he said.
The risk of another bloodbath in a country plagued by conflict in no way weakens the determination of the demonstrators, assures AFP pro-democracy activist Tahani Abbas. “The military will not rule us”, she told AFP. And the “manifestation of the million” promised on social media and in graffiti on the walls of Khartoum – where the authorities have cut the internet and the telephone network – is just one “first step”.
In a country ruled almost continuously since its independence 65 years ago by the military, the streets have decided to say no to General Burhane, who on Monday dissolved Sudan’s institutions and arrested most of the civilian leaders. On Saturday, a first parade left Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city, witnesses said, while security forces were crisscrossing the capital, blocking bridges connecting it to its suburbs and searching passers-by and cars.
Protesters have been chanting it for days: “no going back possible” after the revolt which overthrew dictator Omar El-Bashir in 2019, a general who himself came to power by a putsch 30 years earlier, at the cost of six months of mobilization and more than 250 deaths.