High food prices bring out more protestors in Sudan
Saturday March 26 2022
Mass street demonstrations have recently spread to other cities. PHOTO | COURTESY
The political situation in Sudan is still very fluid as protestors are unrelenting in their show of opposition to the junta. Street demonstrations once confined to the capital Khartoum have spread and taken root in its satellite cities and provincial capitals.
It is noteworthy that the deteriorating economic conditions in the country have led to the widening of the circle of protests, in light of the significant increase in the prices of commodities, especially fuel, in addition to the deterioration of the value of the Sudanese pound against other currencies.
On Thursday, one demonstrator was killed in Wad Madani city, the capital of the Al Jazirah state in eastcentral of the country. Others were injured, some seriously, in the capital, Khartoum.
The Sudanese security forces used tear gas extensively to disperse thousands of protesters who were demonstrating near the presidential palace in Khartoum, and the violent scenes were witnessed across the country as citizens rallied around the same goal: Force the junta out and bring back the agreed transitional government.
The Central Committee of Sudan Doctors said that Mohamed Abdel Latif, 28, was killed after being shot in the chest by a shotgun at close range by the security forces in Wad Madani, bringing the total number of people killed to 90, since the committee started counting after the coup of October 25, 2021.
The epicenter of the demonstrations was Khartoum and its satellite cities with protesters gathered at several points in the three satellite cities of Khartoum, engaged in running battles with the security forces, who deployed extensively and fired live bullets and used tear gas and water cannons to prevent them from reaching the Republican Palace, the destination of the demonstrators.
According to eyewitnesses, a number of demonstrators were wounded, including three seriously and who were rushed to hospital.
The Thursday mass demonstrations in the capital, Khartoum, and a number of cities in the country, are part of the scheduled protests that have taken place in the country since the coup, during which the army commander, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, overthrew the civilian transitional government of Hamid Hamdok.
For the second day in a row, protesters responded to calls by the resistance committees and showed up to barricade streets. The demonstrations are highly organised and follow a schedule prepared by the committees that includes a number of protest methods, including how to conduct the demonstrations, to barricade and acts of civil disobedience.
Thursday's protests came two days after the barricading of the capital's streets by the demonstrators, in Khartoum and its satellite cities.
This week, the United States’s State Department added Sudan’s security reserve forces to its sanctions list. A statement from the US Treasury said that “the placement of the Reserve Police on the sanctions list came after it committed serious human rights violations.”
Recently there has been little friction between the protesters and the police in some locations, especially in the city of Khartoum North, when the latter attempt to remove the barricades.
The demonstrators on Thursday in Khartoum numbered in their thousands and others were held simultenously in Wad Madani, Gedaref and Atbara.
The authorities however preempted the demonstrations by spreading security and closing the Al-Mak Nimr Bridge, which connects the cities of Khartoum and Khartoum North, and later closed the White Nile Bridge that connects the cities of Khartoum and Omdurman.
Omdurman demonstrators then instead headed to the parliament buildings, while the Khartoum processions gathered and headed to the presidential palace in central Khartoum, where they were met with heavy firing of tear gas, sound bombs and live bullets.
"The Reserve Police used excessive force against pro-democracy demonstrators who had peacefully demonstrated against the military's overthrow of the civilian-led transitional government in Sudan," the State Department said.
The Central Reserve Forces are a fighting faction administratively affiliated with the Sudanese police, established by the former regime, and used to confront the recent protest movement in Sudan.