Scores of protesters wounded on Sudan’s streets
SUDAN - Seven people have died and nearly 200 have been wounded during huge demonstrations in Sudan, the first largescale protests since a crackdown on a camp early in June left at least 128 people dead.
Tens of thousands took part in protests across the country on Sunday. In Khartoum, the capital, protesters demanded that the ruling transitional military council (TMC) hand over power to civilians, as security forces fired teargas at them.
“Kabashi, you are a liar – the revolution has just started,” the protesters chanted, referring to the TMC spokesman Gen Shams Eddin Kabashi, and: “Blood for blood, we won’t accept compensation.” Soliman Abdel-Gabar, acting undersecretary of health, reported Sunday night that at least seven people died during the day’s disturbances across the country. He said 181 people were injured, including 27 with bullet wounds. One of those who died in Atbara, in the River Nile state, north of Khartoum, was named as Khalid Awad, a 35-year-old father of three.
Protests against Sudan’s long-time dictator, Omar alBashir, began in Atbara in December, but since the military removed him in April it has refused to permit civilian rule.
Talks between the military and civilian representatives over a power-sharing agreement collapsed this month when security forces used force to break up the Khartoum protests.
Sunday’s protests also coincided with the 30th anniversary of the Islamist-backed coup that brought Bashir to power. Demonstrators gathered at several points across the capital before heading to neighbourhoods where the families of those who had died in the protests lived to pay respects at the “martyrs’ houses”.
Protesters then moved to the airport avenue where they were blocked by more than 50 vehicles of police and the feared paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Bridges leading to central Khartoum were also closed following a call from the Sudanese Professionals Association, a trade union organisation and the main civilian group involved in the protests, for protesters to head to the presidential palace.
(The Guardian)