Sudanese Protesters Take to Streets to Demand Civilian Rule

An elderly Sudanese woman shouts slogans during the demonstration - AFP
An elderly Sudanese woman shouts slogans during the demonstration - AFP
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Sudanese Protesters Take to Streets to Demand Civilian Rule

An elderly Sudanese woman shouts slogans during the demonstration - AFP
An elderly Sudanese woman shouts slogans during the demonstration - AFP

Flashing victory signs, honking car horns and burning tires, masses of Sudanese protesters fearing a return to military rule took to the streets nationwide to make their point.

"We will not go back to dictatorship," said 21-year-old Solafa Mohammed covered in the Sudanese flag during a protest in the capital, Khartoum.

"We went out to say that we are alert and protecting our revolution."

Mohammed was among tens of thousands of protesters who rallied on Thursday in support of Sudan's transition to civilian rule.

They came to counter a pro-military protest camped outside the presidential palace in central Khartoum since Saturday.

The pro-civilian rule demonstrations occurred across the country from Port Sudan in the east to the Darfur region in the west.

They were reminiscent of the late 2018-2019 protests that erupted against the three-decade rule of then-president Omar al-Bashir, who was deposed in April 2019, according to AFP.

Many were dancing, singing, and chanting against senior military figures who have shared power with civilians since August 2019.

On a dusty red lot in Khartoum, they flew Sudanese flags, some of them so big they provided shelter from the sun for protesters underneath. Others carried giant green, yellow and blue flags, several metres long, from pre-Bashir Sudan.

"We will not give up our demand of a civilian state," said protester Amir Shazly.

The demonstrations were organized by the mainstream faction of the Forces for Freedom and Change, an umbrella civilian alliance which spearheaded the anti-Bashir protests more than two years ago.

They coincided with the anniversary of the Sudanese uprising against military rule by president Ibrahim Abboud in 1964.

The transfer to civilian rule is "not even a demand but its what the military itself agreed to do," said another protester, Ahmed al-Tayeb.

Sudan has been led by a civilian-military administration since a power-sharing deal in August 2019 that outlined the transition and the eventual transfer of power to civilians.

Under the transition, the country's political scene has been marred by deepening divisions between civilians and the military, and factional infighting among themselves.

Critics have alleged that the pro-military sit-in, organised by a splinter faction of the FFC, was backed by members of the military and counter-revolutionary sympathizers with the former regime.

Demonstrators at the sit-in have been calling for "military rule" and the dissolution of the transitional government headed by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

Support for Hamdok's government has waned in recent months especially following tough IMF-backed economic reforms that took a toll on ordinary Sudanese.

Sudan's deepening economic crisis is marked by triple-digit inflation and severe shortages exacerbated by anti-government protesters who have blockade Sudan's main sea port.

"This government has not offered the Sudanese people anything for two years," said Hamada Abdelrahman, a protester outside the presidential palace in Khartoum.

Still, rival protesters remained adamant on the transfer of power to civilians.

"We are now sending a message that the streets belong to the revolutionaries," said protester Mujahed Mohammed in Khartoum.

"Its the people who get to decide."



Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
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Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)

Fighting in Sudan's Kordofan region that has killed hundreds and ongoing violence in Darfur — the epicenters of the country's conflict — have worsened Sudan's humanitarian crisis, with aid workers warning of limited access to assistance.

The United Nations said more than 450 civilians, including at least 35 children, were killed during the weekend of July 12 in attacks in villages surrounding the town of Bara in North Kordofan province.

“The suffering in Kordofan deepens with each passing day,” Mercy Corps Country Director for Sudan Kadry Furany said in a statement shared with The Associated Press. “Communities are trapped along active and fast changing front lines, unable to flee, unable to access basic needs or lifesaving assistance.”

Sudan plunged into war after simmering tensions between the army and its rival, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, escalated to fighting in April 2023. The violence has killed at least 40,000 people and created one of the world’s worst displacement and hunger crises, according to humanitarian organizations. In recent months, much of the fighting has been concentrated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.

On Thursday, the UN human rights office confirmed that since July 10, the RSF has killed at least 60 civilians in the town of Bara, while civil society groups reported up to 300 people were killed, the office said.

A military airstrike on Thursday in Bara killed at least 11 people, all from the same family, according to the UN office. Meanwhile, between July 10 and 14, the army killed at least 23 civilians and injured over two dozen others after striking two villages in West Kordofan.

An aid worker with Mercy Corps said his brother was fatally shot on July 13 during an attack on the village of Um Seimima in El Obeid City in North Kordofan, Grace Wairima Ndungu, the group’s communications manager told AP.

Furany said that movement between the western and eastern areas of the Kordofan region is “practically impossible.”

The intensified fighting forced Mercy Corps to temporarily suspend operations in three out of four localities, with access beyond Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, now being in “serious doubt,” Furany said, as a safe sustained humanitarian corridor is needed.

Mathilde Vu, an aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council who is often based in Port Sudan, told the AP that fighting has intensified in North Kordofan and West Kordofan over the past several months.

“A large number of villages are being destroyed, burned to the ground, people being displaced,” she said. “What is extremely worrying about the Kordofan is that there is very little information and not a lot of organizations are able to support. It is a complete war zone there.”

Marwan Taher, head of mission with humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, told the AP that military operations in Kordofan heightened insecurity, prompting scores of people to flee to Darfur, a region already in a dire humanitarian situation.

The NRC said that since April, Tawila has already received 379,000 people escaping violence in famine-hit Zamzam Camp and Al Fasher.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration recently reported that over 46,000 people were displaced from different areas in West Kordofan in May alone due to clashes between warring parties.

Taher said those fleeing El Fasher to Tawila walk long distances with barely enough clothes and little water, and sleep on the streets until they arrive at the area they want to settle in. The new wave of displacement has brought diseases, including measles, which began spreading in parts of Zalingi in Central Darfur in March and April as camps received people fleeing Kordofan.

Aid workers also warned about ongoing fighting in Darfur. Vu said there have been “uninterrupted campaigns of destruction” against civilians in North Darfur.
“In Darfur there’s been explicit targeting of civilians. There’s been explicit execution,” she said.

Shelling killed five children Wednesday in El Fasher in North Darfur, according to UN spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay. Meanwhile, between July 14 and 15, heavy rains and flooding displaced over 400 people and destroyed dozens of homes in Dar As Salam, North Darfur.

With a looming rainy season, a cholera outbreak and food insecurity, the situation in Darfur is “getting worse every day and that’s what war is,” said Taher.