(Khartoum) Two demonstrators hostile to military power in Sudan were killed on Sunday in Khartoum during parades which again brought together thousands of people despite the total cut-off of communications and a massive deployment of armed soldiers.
Once again, a protester was shot down and another had his head smashed by blows from the security forces, reports a pro-democracy doctors’ union, bringing the number of protesters killed since the coup to 56. State of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane on October 25.
In a ballet now running, the authorities first tried, in vain, to nip the mobilization in the bud by erecting physical and virtual barriers.
Khartoum has been cut off from its suburbs for several days by containers placed across bridges over the Nile. Internet and cell phones have not been connected since Sunday morning and, on the main roads, security forces perched on armored vehicles armed with heavy machine guns keep watch on passers-by.
But thousands of Sudanese have nonetheless responded to the activists’ call to demonstrate “in memory of the martyrs”, facing tear gas canisters in front of the presidential palace in Khartoum, where the transitional authorities headed by the general now sit. Burhane, and live ammunition in Omdourman, northwest suburbs.
“The soldiers at the barracks”
Throughout the afternoon, the supporters of civil power chanted by the thousands “The soldiers in the barracks” and “The power to the people”, while young people on motorcycles crisscrossed the crowd, evacuating the wounded because at each mobilization the ambulances were blocked by the security forces.
Activists call for making 2022 “the year of continued resistance”, demanding justice for the dozens of demonstrators killed since the putsch, but also for the more than 250 civilians killed during the “revolution” of 2019.
That year, popular pressure forced the army to dismiss one of its own, General Omar al-Bashir, after thirty years of military-Islamist dictatorship.
So generals and civilians agreed on a transitional timetable that called for handing over all power to civilians before free elections in 2023.
But on October 25, General Burhane reshuffled the cards: he extended his de facto mandate as head of the country for two years and reinstalled civilian Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok a month later. The latter has not appeared in public for days as rumors of resignation keep swelling.
Because the new power is still struggling to present to the 45 million Sudanese the civilian government that it promised at the end of November by releasing Mr. Hamdok from house arrest.
And with the wave of violence which continues to swell, the acting Minister of Health has already left the ship, while a civilian member of the Sovereign Council, the highest authority of the transition, said he wanted to do the same.
“Neither partnership nor negotiation”
In a country almost always under the rule of the army since its independence 65 years ago, the demonstrators proclaim it: they want “neither partnership nor negotiation” with the army.
Opposite, an adviser to General Burhane ruled on Friday that “the demonstrations are only a waste of energy and time” which will not lead to “any political solution”.
Once again on Sunday, the Sudanese authorities will be observed by the international community, which denounces an escalation.
In addition to the deaths and the shutdown of the telephone and the Internet, the security forces are also accused of having resorted in December to a new tool of repression: the rape of at least 13 demonstrators, according to the UN.
In addition, every day and in each neighborhood, the Resistance Committees, small groups that organize demonstrations, announce new arrests or disappearances in their ranks.
Europeans have already expressed their outrage, as have US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the United Nations. All plead for a return to dialogue as a prerequisite for the resumption of international aid cut after the putsch in this country, one of the poorest in the world.
Blinken warned on Saturday that the United States was “ready to respond to all those who seek to prevent the Sudanese from continuing their quest for a civilian and democratic government.”