Tear gas and burning tyres as thousands rally in Sudan against the coup

KHARTOUM, Jan 6, 2022 (AFP) – Sudanese security forces fired tear gas on Thursday aiming to stop thousands of protesters demanding a transition to civilian rule, the latest rallies in weeks of unrest since a military coup.

Singing, beating drums, and holding up posters of some of the dozens killed in demonstrations since the October 25 putsch, protesters in the capital Khartoum shouted defiant slogans against the army.

Many protesters in Khartoum were seen wounded and struggling with breathing difficulties due to the heavy firing of tear gas, according to the witnesses.

The military takeover — one of several in Sudan’s post-independence history — has seen security forces launch a crackdown that has left at least 57 people dead and hundreds wounded, according to the independent Doctors’ Committee, part of the pro-democracy movement.

“We will not stop until we get our country back,” shouted one protester, 22-year old Samar al-Tayeb.

Other demonstrators set fire to tyres to create burning barricades on the streets.

Crowds were marching towards the presidential palace in Khartoum when security forces fired volleys of tear gas that formed thick and choking clouds, witnesses said.

“Our marches will continue until we restore our revolution and our civilian government, even if martyrs fall among us,” said Mojataba Hussein, a 23-year-old protester.

When military chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan staged the power grab more than two months ago, it dismantled a precarious power-sharing arrangement between the military and civilians established in the wake of the April 2019 ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir.

The protests on Thursday came days after prime minister Abdalla Hamdok resigned, leaving the military fully in charge. Hamdock had first been held under house arrest for weeks following the coup, before being reinstated in a November 21 deal after international pressure.

The protest movement had called the November pact a “betrayal” for providing what they said was a cloak of legitimacy for Burhan’s coup, and had kept up its rallies.

When Hamdok stepped down on Sunday, he said Sudan was at a “dangerous crossroads threatening its very survival”.

Western nations say the solution is dialogue, a point made in a tweet Wednesday by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

He said: “To overcome the current crisis in Sudan, we and our partners strongly urge stakeholders to commit to an immediate, Sudanese-led, and internationally facilitated dialogue.”

He also called on Sudanese security forces to “cease using lethal force against demonstrators & commit to an independent investigation.”

Demonstrations on Thursday again took place in other cities as well as the capital, witnesses said.

“The authority is that of the people,” protesters chanted in Wad Madani, demanding soldiers “go back to the barracks”.

In Atbara, protesters called on Burhan to “hand over the country’s keys and leave,” witnesses said.

Crowds in the central state of North Kordofan chanted “No, no to military rule” while waving and draped in the national flag.

Others also took to the streets in Central and South Darfur states, according to witnesses.

On Tuesday, the United States, European Union, Britain and Norway warned the military against naming their own successor to Hamdok, saying that without the involvement of “a broad range of civilian stakeholders” such a move could plunge the country into conflict.

On Thursday, state media quoted Burhan’s media adviser Taher Abouhaga as saying, in an apparent reference to the absence of a government: “The void must be filled in the least possible time.”

Protesters vowed to keep up their demonstrations, defying a hardline response from the security forces.

Burhan last month issued a decree allowing security forces to arrest individuals “over crimes related to the state of emergency”, effectively banning street protests.

Web monitoring group NetBlocks said the mobile internet was cut from mid-morning Thursday, and wider internet access and phone lines were also disrupted, a tactic repeatedly used to disrupt activists trying to organise demonstrations and broadcasting live footage of the rallies.

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