As Internet services returned to Sudan on Thursday (November 18), the street clashes shook Khartoum again. The day before, 15 protesters were killed in the bloodiest violence in the country since the October 25 coup d’état.
US Secretary of State Anthony Brinken led the international community to condemn the repression and demanded that the Sudanese people be allowed to “peacefully assemble and express their opinions.”
The United States expressed serious concern over the deadly use of force against peaceful protesters in Sudan yesterday. The Sudanese authorities should respect the right of all people in Sudan to assemble peacefully and freely express their demands for the restoration of a civilian-led transition.
— Secretary of State Anthony Blinken (@SecBlinken) November 19, 2021
Although Internet services were almost completely shut down and telephone lines were interrupted, Wednesday’s demonstrations were organized.
On Thursday, the police fired tear gas to disperse the anti-coup protesters and demolished temporary roadblocks. Then dozens of demonstrators returned to rebuild the roadblocks, but faced more tear gas.
“The protesters responded by throwing stones at the police,” one of the witnesses said.
The official news agency SUNA later stated that “Internet services are gradually returning through all telecommunications companies.”
AFP reporters can access the Internet through VPN, including social media networks.
‘Stop the suppression’
On October 25, since the resignation of long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel Fattah al- Senior General Burhan detained civilian leaders and declared a state of emergency.
The move overturned Sudan’s fragile transition to full civil rule, incurring international condemnation and a series of punitive measures and aid cuts.
Burhan insisted that the military’s move was “not a coup” but a step to “correct the transition to civil rule.”
Thousands of people in Khartoum and other cities took to the streets on Wednesday but suffered the deadliest crackdown since the military took over.
Doctors said that at least 15 people were killed, most of them in northern Khartoum, which increased the total death toll since the coup to 39.
But the police said they only recorded the death of one of the protesters in northern Khartoum. Another 30 people have difficulty breathing due to tear gas inhalation.
They said that they did not fire live ammunition and only used “minimal force” even though 89 officers were injured, some of them seriously.
Michelle Bachelet, head of human rights at the United Nations, said: “It is really shameful to use live ammunition against protesters again yesterday.”
Clement Voule, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of association, said he “received shocking reports that the army is increasingly using lethal force against peaceful protesters”.
The European Union stated that “the perpetrators of these violations will be held accountable” and that power outages “cannot prevent the world from learning about these human rights violations”.
By Thursday morning, telephone lines had been restored and Internet services had been restored.
The bridge connecting Khartoum and its neighboring cities was reopened, and traffic returned to the streets of the capital.
Last week, Burhan established a new sovereign committee, the supreme transitional authority, who served as the chief military figure and the former leader of the insurgency.
He replaced members of the Sudan’s main civilian group Force for Freedom and Change (FFC) with lesser-known figures.
‘The way forward’
The FFC is an umbrella coalition that sparked the protests that led to Bashir’s ouster in 2019, and its mainstream faction supported the anti-coup protests in recent weeks.
Since the coup, Burhan has removed the FFC-related clauses from the power-sharing agreement between the EU military and civilians in 2019.
This week, Molly Fei, the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, met with generals and the expelled civilian government to find a way out of the crisis.
Phee called for the reinstatement of the expelled Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok (Abdalla Hamdok), who was effectively placed under house arrest.
Burhan vowed to hold planned elections in 2023 and reiterated to the Philippines on Tuesday that his actions are aimed at “correcting the trajectory of the revolution.”
On Thursday, a senior US official stated that Washington is convinced that the Sudanese military wants to find a way out of the crisis.
“In my opinion, everyone wants to find a way back. This is not the feeling I think you get from the outside,” said the senior official on the plane from Brinken to Africa.
“There is a lot of room to find a way forward.”
