Prime minister focused on nation’s financial woes after uprising against Al Bashir
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was appointed in August 2019 after a popular uprising toppled former president Omar Al Bashir.
Mr Hamdok was instrumental in several breakthroughs for the country after that, including securing its removal from the US state sponsors of terrorism list. That achievement was a first step towards receiving much-needed financial aid and improving Sudan’s status with the international community.
The country’s military placed Mr Hamdok under house arrest yesterday, with other members of his civilian-led government also detained.
Mr Hamdok’s background in finance and his connections in the sector proved effective in tackling Sudan’s economic woes, although major problems such as a lack of basic necessities, including fuel and bread, remain.
He is still popular among civilian groups, including the Forces for Freedom and Change and the Sudanese Professionals Association, which played important roles during the 2019 uprising.
Born in 1956, Mr Hamdok served as an official in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning in his thirties, before working in the private sector with Deloitte & Touche, one of the Big Four US accounting companies.
He later worked at the International Labour Organisation, the African Development Bank and the UN Economic Commission for Africa.
He was sworn in as Sudan’s 15th prime minister in 2019 to lead a transitional government.
In October last year, the Juba Peace Agreement was signed to effectively end a decades-long conflict between the Sudanese government and several rebel groups.
The Information Ministry said Mr Hamdok was detained yesterday after refusing to give his support to a military coup against the transitional government and the ruling Sovereign Council.
Instead, he called on the public to hold their ground and resist military intervention, the ministry said.
Mr Hamdok and his wife were “kidnapped at dawn”, his office said on Facebook.
The military takeover is akin to “tearing up the constitution”, it said.
It is holding the military responsible for Mr Hamdok’s safety and well-being and made repeated calls for the public to make peaceful protests against the move to “retrieve the revolution from its abductors”.
Opposition groups continued to organise demonstrations as people took to the streets of the capital, Khartoum, setting tyres on fire and blocking roads.
After Mr Hamdok was arrested, internet connectivity monitor NetBlocks reported “significant disruption” in internet services across the country.
The cuts affected major telecoms providers and were an apparent attempt to prevent public gatherings from growing.
A military takeover would “contravene the Constitutional Declaration and the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people”, Jeffrey Feltman, US special envoy for the Horn of Africa, said on Twitter.
He said the move was “utterly unacceptable”.