Sudan’s deposed prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok and the top general that ousted him a month ago on Sunday signed a breakthrough deal that would see a complete reversal of the military takeover, however, protests continued and a teenager was killed.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that thousands of demonstrators in multiple rallies rejected the deal, shouting ‘No to military power’ and demanding the armed forces fully withdraw from government.
A 16-year-old boy was shot and killed in Khartoum’s twin city Omdurman, medics said, bringing the total death toll since last month’s coup to 41.
Several other people suffered gunshot wounds after clashes with security forces, they added.
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan appeared at the presidential palace in Khartoum for a televised ceremony with a haggard-looking premier Abdalla Hamdok, emerging from weeks of house arrest.
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The 14-point deal they entered into on Sunday officially restores the transition to civilian rule that had been derailed by the October 25 putsch in the poverty-stricken African country.
The agreement, which comes after crisis talks involving Sudanese, UN, African and Western players, stated that Burhan’s decision “to relieve the transitional prime minister (of his duties) is cancelled”.
It said all political detainees would be freed, and formally relaunched the fragile transition process towards full democracy that started after the 2019 ouster of long-time autocrat Omar al-Bashir.
Hamdok praised the people power ‘revolution’ that brought him to government and declared the top priority now was to ‘stop the bloodshed in Sudan before anything else’.
‘We leave the choice of who rules Sudan to its mighty people,’ he said.
Burhan thanked Hamdok for his service and vowed that ‘free and transparent elections’ would be held as part of the transition process.
‘He was patient with us until we reached this moment,’ Burhan said before posing for photos with the reinstated premier and his own deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The deal was welcomed by the African Union, the United Nations, Sweden as well as Saudi Arabia and Egypt who have strong ties with the Sudanese military.
The African Union said it was ‘an important step towards the return to constitutional order’.
The UN stressed the ‘need to protect the constitutional order to safeguard the basic freedoms of political action, freedom of speech and peaceful assembly’.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK