Sudanese security forces fired tear gas to disperse angry protesters on Thursday who are furious over a military coup that derailed a fragile transition to democracy.
Africa Today News, New York reports that while street violence rocked Khartoum for the fourth day, the UN Security Council appealed to Sudan’s new military rulers to restore the civilian-led government they toppled on Monday.
The council had in a unanimous decision passed statement expressed ‘serious concern’ about the army power grab in the poverty-stricken Northeast African nation and urged all sides “to engage in dialogue without pre-conditions’.
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan — Sudan’s de facto leader since the 2019 ouster of veteran autocrat Omar al-Bashir after huge youth-led protests — on Monday dissolved the country’s fragile government.
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While the civilian leader, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, has been under effective house arrest, the capital has been rocked by days of unrest and is bracing for major demonstrations on Saturday.
Roads have been blocked by barricades of rocks, debris, and burning car tyres that have sent black smoke billowing into the sky, while most shops have been shuttered in a campaign of civil disobedience.
‘We do not want military power, we want a free democratic life in this country,‘ said one protester, who asked not to be named.
At least seven protesters were reported dead by local morgues on Monday, and an unspecified number of corpses have been delivered since, say health officials.
The latest street clashes on Thursday rocked the restive eastern Khartoum district of Burri.
The coup was the latest to have hit the country which has experienced only rare democratic interludes since independence in 1956.
The World Bank and the United States have frozen aid and denounced the army’s power grab, while the African Union has suspended Sudan’s membership over what it termed the ‘unconstitutional’ takeover.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK